Massacre at Idyll Valley Read online

  As soon as the smoke hit the air the Hampton brothers scurried down from the hay loft, picked up the long ladder in the carriage garage and, waiting until the outlaws moved away from view, crossed over to the General Store and leaned it against the back wall under its lone window. Clayton Hampton climbed up the ladder, broke open the window with the but of his pistol and George came quickly through.

  Suddenly, out on the street there was someone visible to the outlaws. Two riders appeared at the other end of Main Street and pulled up side by side. It was Galen and Parson Tull, still dressed with the attention of a clothes-conscious outlaw.

  The two groups, attackers and defenders, stood facing each other in the smoke filled town, the General Store burning closer to the ground.

  Nobody moved.

  Up the hillside the two riders came upon a tall cliff with tracks leading up to the base. They stopped. Then approached. Then, finding the cave mouth, stopped again.

  “You may as well come on out. We can stay here for days until you do.”

  No answer from the cave.

  “We know you’re in there,” he said. “You’re trapped.”

  “Johnny turned and asked for the long rifle. He placed the stock in a little trench in the rock in front of him and lifted the long sight to its maximum height.

  The man who had spoken saw what was happening and laughed. “He can’t get a shot to go this distance with any accuracy at all,” he said.

  A little piff of exploding cartridge fire hit the air and an instant later, when he realized what just happened, the man got an astonished look on his face, looked down to see a hole in his chest near his left shoulder and promptly fell to the ground.

  He just sat there examining his wound when his compatriot shouted something unintelligible and suddenly rode away. The wounded man looked up in time to see something that sparkled with fire tumbling his way. He was frozen, realizing he couldn’t get away in time, just waiting the last few seconds before it landed. He didn’t have long to wait.

  The dynamite landed three feet away from the man. He just watched the last fizzle. Nothing happened. He smiled and started to get up. That was when the stick went off with a terrible boom that lifted the man half-way down the hill.

  The second man was so enraged that he charged the mouth of the cave, screeching at the top of his lungs. Johnny scrambled for his pistol, which, in transition, had slipped out of reach.

  The man was approaching rapidly and still Johnny could not find his weapon. He stood as if to take on the man with bare hands and heard a huge, deafening roar off to his side.

  The man on the horse virtually disintegrated, falling in steaming pieces to the ground.

  Johnny looked around to see Ruth Ann on her back, her double barrel ten gage smoking from both barrels. Dazed but smiling,

  Ruth Ann flashed him a very vigorous thumbs up.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The General Store was burning to the ground. No one could come to offer sand or water.

  The five outlaws stood in the distance surrounded by smoke. Galen and Tull stood at the other end of the street. In the left bunker was Jackson Charles. In the right was Jim Clark, Galen’s neighbor. Ethan Johnson was upstairs in the Angel Dust under strict instructions not to fire on anybody unless his own life was at stake. He had not fired a single shot.

  A Mexican Standoff was in place. Nobody moved, nor could move without starting a deadly mess.

  Boss growled. He shook his head. “We’re getting nowhere here,” he said. “Hodge, you circle around behind and see if you can get a clear shot at those two at the end of the street.”

  Hodge sneered. “Easy as it comes,” he said, and turned his horse around.

  Galen and Tull split and rode alongside the sidewalk on either side of the street headed toward the men. They stopped part way and waited.

  The silhouette of a man rose to the top of the Outfitter’s Shop and approached the edge overlooking the street below. He dropped to his knees and drew his rifle pointing toward Tull. He sighted. He put his finger on the trigger. He hummed the little tune he hummed when he was about to kill someone.

  Tull heard a shot from somewhere up and to the left of him and looked up to see the body of a man falling into the street. Hodge Dobson was dead as he fell.

  Boss roared. “Jesus! How did that happen?” No one had an answer. He didn’t expect one. “Okay, you chicken shits,” he said. “Time to see what you’re made of. Let’s go.”

  He kicked his horse to a gallop and charged into the heart of the battle, shooting as he came, his men following behind.

  What Jim and Jackson saw speeding by their bunkers was a blur of men riding fast. They fired as quickly as their lever action rifles would allow and dropped three men.

  Boss made it through. Riding at top speed fired repeatedly in the direction of Galen and Tull, who, seeing the scene develop, had dismounted and taken a position behind barrels of water. Bullet holes opened spouts of water and one bullet struck Tull in the shoulder.

  Boss pulled up at the end of the street and looked back to see horses and smoke but none of his men still standing.

  He looked down to see blood spreading over his thigh. He turned and rode up the hillside and looked back down at the town.

  Tull and Galen came out into the street. Jim and Jackson followed suit. The Hampton boys and George Pickens joined in. Only Ethan was missing.

  Ethan had watched the battle from the upstairs window of the Angel Dust. The shooting had stopped but he was unclear if it was time to come out or not. He decided to wait until someone called for him.

  But he heard a noise downstairs and moved to investigate, gun in hand. As he reached the middle of the stair a man popped out and held his gun on him. “Drop that weapon, young man, and come on down. You’re going to be my shield.”

  The door to the Angel dust opened and Ethan came out followed by the wounded outlaw. He shouted over Ethan’s shoulder his command. “Don’t anyone draw on me or this boy will be meat.”

  Everyone stayed still.

  “I want a horse and time to get away. I’m taking this boy with me as collateral. If anyone follows me he’s dead.”

  “How do we know you won’t kill him anyway?” said Galen.

  “You don’t,” said the outlaw. “But it’s your only chance.”

  Outlaw and boy moved slowly toward the nearest horse.

  “Take the reins,” said the outlaw and Ethan obliged. “Now let’s walk slowly sideways toward the far end to of town keeping you between me and those men.

  Seven men stood and watched boy, outlaw and horse move slowly to freedom. There was no clear shot. And the outlaw was staying close to Ethan and watching every move. No amount of quickness would guarantee success.

  The threesome reached the end of town and stopped to mount up. There was a brief second of separation as the outlaw turned lose of Ethan to take the rains. At that instant everyone heard a shot from behind them and saw the outlaw stagger and fall. They turned to look behind and saw. . .

  . . . standing alongside the church, a lone rifleman.

  The rifleman was Jake Paxton.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The cave dwellers were brought down from the mountain and together with the town defenders out from their posts, everyone gathered in the center of town. The remaining embers of the fire at the General Store were put out and promises were made to rebuild George’s shop as soon as possible.

  “At least to start the inventory,” George said, “I will have guns and ammunition. . .” he laughed, “. . now that you’ve finished using them.”

  Galen walked up to Jebediah Tull. “How’s your wound?”

  “Just a little meat,” he said.

  “By the way, where the hell did you get that cannon?”

  Tull flashed a very self-satisfying smile. “I have a little collection,” he said, “that satisfies my fascination with weaponry. A buddy of mine who was a munitions officer in the Confederate Army let me have this
very small cannon. It was of no use to anybody any more, anyway. I kept it hidden in a shed back near Waxahachie so when the action around here looked like it was coming to a peak I went out with my horse one night and towed it into the sacristy of my church. There I kept it comfortable among the sacred vessels. When the conflagration was eminent I placed my hand on that mighty barrel in a reverent baptismal fashion and said a little prayer of dedication in the service of the Lord. All I had to do was roll it to the front window when the time came.” He took a breath and arched his good shoulder. “Jesus! Did you see that cannon ball fly?”

  Johnny Talmountain went home with Lily Christianson. On the way he asked her a question. “Is it time for me to go now?”

  “We will never be apart,” she said. “You’ve bled on my hands.”

  ****

  Meanwhile, Horse Diggins, having sustained a crushing defeat, and now without a gang, physically wounded, and his pride suffering major damage, straggled up over the hill outside Possum Trot. Over the top of the ridge he came face to face with five men on horseback waiting in the center of the trail.

  One of the men came forward. “Enjoyed watching you get the shit beat out of you down in Possum Trot,” he said. “That pesky little town just did our job for us.”

  “Why would you care?” Boss said.

  The man produced an arrow with a note attached to it. “Someone knew we’d care. They shot this arrow into our camp yesterday, then disappeared.”

  “What’s that fucking arrow got to do with anything?”

  “Oh, this arrow is emblematic. It marks the beginning of a new era around here and a new future for you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  The man cocked his head to one side. “You are now standing in front of the NoMano Gang. We’re smaller, quicker and cleaner than your gang ever was. And we. . . well, we’re your worst nightmare.”

  “I don’t have nightmares.”

  “Then you’re not paying attention, because we’re the new stage robbers that have been taking over your territory, have taken your little game and made it better, more civilized. And this,”—he held up the arrow, waved it in the air, then detached a piece of buckskin from it,—“is a message saying exactly where and when we would find you today.” He paused and looked over the bedraggled remnants of a once powerful man. “Only it didn’t say how badly you’d be beaten.”

  Some of the men laughed.

  Horse Diggins looked up. “Maybe this is good. Maybe I’ll take you under my leadership and we’ll not have to compete any more.”

  The man laughed out loud. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Seems logical.”

  “Except we don’t like your style.”

  “We’d be stronger combining strengths.”

  “You’ve got no strengths, no bargaining power, Mr. Diggins, nothing left to offer.”

  He paused. Leaned forward. A small breeze picked up and pushed in among the gathered horses. “Besides, he said, “we have our own leader and we’ll stick by him.”

  Diggins looked up with an element of mild interest in his tired eyes. “Who the hell is that?”

  A moment passed during which nothing was said. Then an arm went up at the back of the pack. The man belonging to it moved forward, arm held aloft. As he came closer it became apparent there was no hand at the end of the arm. Slowly, very slowly, a realization crept over Diggins and a memory reshaped itself in his mind, rising from the box of unpleasant things he’d kept it in all this time, a memory about the time a man under his leadership at the Angel Dust was sent on a mission that resulted in a horrible failure. The man got his hand shot off.

  The man without a hand stopped at the front of the group.

  “Hello, Horse,” he said. “Long time no see.”

  “Rudge, he said. “Rudge, my friend. . .”

  “No friend. No friends here at all.” Rudge paused. “Surely you remember that task you sent me on? Remember how you had me set fire to the Rusty Bucket because you thought it was too much competition for you? And then asked me to do away with the little girl who saw me do it? Remember that, Horse Diggins?”

  “It was necessary.”

  Rudge shook his head. “If I’d succeeded I would have lived with that nightmare all my life. In a way, the fact that Galen Clay shot my hand off was a blessing.”

  “They told me you were floating down the Pedernales River to the Gulf of Mexico,” Horse said.

  “They lied. They bandaged me up and set me northwest into Indian country where you would never find me or even know to look.”

  “Too bad.”

  “It was the best thing that could have happened. Changed my life.”

  Rudge turned to his men. “Now what should we do with this renegade? What kind of hell deserves to receive a bad apple like this?”

  The men laughed. “It’s a pleasant dilemma, nonetheless,” said Rudge.

  He turned back to face Horse Diggins. “We could shoot you full of lead and leave you here to rot under the dissecting beaks of buzzards. How about that?”

  The men cheered.

  “That would be fun.” He stroked his chin as if imagining the scene. “But way too kind. Way too kind. You see, Horse, you need to suffer longer. You need to question your existence and think hard about this toxic world you created around yourself. And then, out there with nobody to help you, you either melt away under the heat of the desert sun or come through by whatever surge you have within you bent upon survival.”

  He stopped to let that sink in.

  “You need to do what I had to do. . . thrown to the dangers of Indian country, learn how to survive on roots and scorpions, make your difficult way with the Comanche and the Apache. Yup,” he nodded, “far better and much more entertaining.”

  Rudge pulled his gun with his good hand. “Down off your horse,” he said.

  Horse hesitated.

  Rudge put a bullet through his hat. “Next one will bite away some flesh,” he said, “flesh you’re going to need out on your trek.”

  Horse dismounted.

  Rudge took the reins, pulled the horse alongside, and lead his gang away. Horse watched until they disappeared over the horizon.

  Now Horse stood very much alone upon the sharp edge that separated his past and this uncertain future that faced him, a future with little to hope for, and little to be certain about more than tumbleweeds and an uncompromising sun.

  THIRTY: Postscript

  Jake sat on the front porch of the house he’d lived in when he was still in Possum Trot, the house that Galen and Crissy now occupied together.

  The farm surrounding the house was exactly as before, a barn and a corral out front and fields of maize and cotton surrounding. Jake had a guitar on his lap and a toothpick in his teeth.

  Charlie the rooster came around and pecked near Jake’s feet. When it turned his back Jake shuffled his feet right quick and the rooster jumped straight up, squawked, and flew away. Jake laughed long and hard. “Don’t know why I think that’s so funny,” he said.

  “Haven’t changed a bit,” said Galen, easing into a chair beside him.

  “What’d you expect from an old cowboy?”

  “Well, sure didn’t expect to see you showing up at our little fracas here in Possum Trot, that’s for sure.” He broke a twig off a porch post and started picking at some dirt under his fingernail. “How’d you know to come back. . .” he held the toothpick up in the air as if looking to see if it had kooties on it “. . . just right at the right time to help us out.”

  “There are many mysteries in life,” Jake said. He turned a cocky face toward Galen. “And that’s one of ‘em.”

  Galen smiled and looked away. “A mystery like that silly guitar sitting on your lap? You can’t play a goddamned guitar.”

  “Nah. I just pluck at it.”

  Galen leaned back and put his feet up on the railing. “Goin’ back to Colorado?”

  “Reckon I have to get back bef
ore the snow goes deep.”

  Crissy came out on the porch. She bent down and kissed Jake’s cheek. “Heard you saved some lives coming here.”

  “I had the element of surprise on my side, Crissy girl. Surprise is mostly a good thing.”

  She rubbed his shoulders. “We kinda miss you around here, you know.”

  “Nah. Looks like everybody’s doing all right by thereselves.”

  “You know Lily has. . .”

  “I know. And good for her, I say. She always needed a little something now and then.”

  “Mighty generous of you.”

  “Mmmm. Well, Colorado’s got a few sights to see.”

  Crissy raised her eyebrow. She nodded and smiled like she heard what he didn’t say. “Dinner’ll be ready, directly,” she said. “You come in when you want to.” She turned and went back in the house.

  Galen leaned over to Jake. “You skunk bait. ‘Colorado’s got a few sights to see.’” He punched Jake’s arm, laughed and went indoors.

  Jake looked out over the terrain. His eyes followed the panorama of the scene surrounding him. As he did so, a memory rose from every fence post and shed he saw, every horse and tumbleweed his eyes lit upon. He took a deep breath and nodded his head. He looked down at the guitar as if finding it for the first time. He patted its face three times, drummed his fingers on the fine wood. Then he lifted its neck and started plucking, aimlessly at first. But now that everybody was out of earshot he could start strumming. After a few chords he began to sing in a crackly, scratchy voice:

  Eyes like a morning star

  Cheeks like a rose

  Emily is a pretty girl

  God Almighty knows

  Weep all you little rains

  Wail winds wail

  All along, along, along,

  The Colorado Trail.

  The End

  NOTES

  Lily’s statement about “the dark” in Chapter Six is a paraphrase of a line from Emily Dickinson.