Massacre at Idyll Valley Page 2

  FOUR

  People gathered in the town center of Possum Trot. Nell Crenshaw had been out picking apples for her pies and saw the men returning to town. She ran back to tell everyone and they all came out to greet them.

  Jackson told the horrible story of what they found in Idyll Valley. Everyone wanted to know who the villains were. No one knew.

  “No survivors at all?” asked Ruth Ann.

  “One and only one,” said Jackson. “A young boy, hid away in the privy, sick as a poisoned pup. Galen stayed behind to care for him. Not sure if he’ll live or die.”

  The crowd moaned and then like a second wave of wind, imitative but stronger than the first, a buzz of astonishment and sorrow swelled and spread through the gathering.

  Eventually, the people disbursed and went about their business. Jackson went out to Jake’s farm to tell Crissy the news and let her know that Galen stayed behind to care for a sick boy. Then he went over to widow Lily Christianson’s. He offered both women safe haven in town at his family restaurant but they both refused. Crissy said she’d wait there ‘til Galen got home. Lily said she’d live or die on her farm.

  ****

  The boy from the privy slept like he might never wake up. All through that night and well into the next day Galen watched him. He felt his forehead from time to time to check the progress of his fever. He dressed his wounds. By noon his temperature had dropped but it returned in the afternoon accompanied by chills and teeth-chattering rigors.

  “Infection spreading,” said Galen.

  He went behind the bar and took down some clear whiskey, soused a cloth and wiped the boy’s face and chest.

  The boy returned to a deep sleep. With his fever down again, Galen went out into the town to inspect the damage. The town itself had remained remarkably intact. Happily, the outlaws did not start fires.

  Idyll Valley was smaller than Possum Trot so there was less to chose from among stores and conveniences, but there was the tavern where the boy was stretched out on the bar, a small general store and feed barn, a small hotel with four upstairs rooms, all structures now decidedly ghostly.

  The outlaws had dispersed or stolen most of the horses from the corral behind the feed barn but there were a few cattle still out in the field. Galen grabbed a pitchfork and slung some hay their direction. Then he brought water from the well to the trough. The cattle were eager.

  In the general store he found some jerky and biscuits, several days old, and brought them back to the tavern.

  The boy was stirring when he got back, but did not wake until the following morning.

  That same morning was the time that two of the outlaws came riding back into town.

  Galen saw them come over the far hill, watched them from the edge of the window as they rode along the main street surveying the damage. One of the men said something to the other that sounded like surprise that all the bodies were missing.

  They stopped and tied up outside the general store across the street and a few moments later came out with burlap bags full of supplies they’d purloined from the shelves inside. They tied them to the saddle horns and walked over toward the Tavern.

  As they reached the center of the street Galen stepped out onto the porch. They glared at him.

  “We came for a drink of whisky,” said the young one with the black Cattleman’s hat.

  “Bar’s closed for repairs,” said Galen.

  The men turned and looked at each other with sinister grins.

  “You telling us we can’t come in?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like we got two and you got one,” said the other man in the Hickok hat and low slung gun belt.

  “I can count,” said Galen.

  “Smart fellow,” said the Cattleman hat. “Smart fellows die quick.”

  Galen didn’t give him the pleasure of a responding to the insult. “You see,” he said, “some ass holes came through here and killed everybody.” He made a wide quick gesture with his arm. “Left this town broken and empty. All at once, this friendly, gentle town got empty and damaged—way too much suffering—and for what?”

  No answer.

  Galen spread his boots apart and drifted his hands out over his guns, one on each hip. “No more damage today from rat turds like you,” he said.

  The two men were shocked that one person would dare stand up to them. Shock was quickly replaced by a touch of worry spreading over their faces as they separated five paces and stood facing Galen. The board was set.

  No one spoke.

  A cow mooed in the field.

  A grackle fluttered in and perched on the roof of the General Store.

  Galen heard the boy shift behind him but he kept his focus sharply on the men. He’d been here many times before. The key was to predict who would be the fastest and plan to pick him off quickly. It was automatic for him. He hardly had to think about it. Even so, it was the first movement that initiated response and though you might guess ahead of time, you never knew for sure until what happened, happened.

  The older man in the Hickok hat drew first. As soon as he did every split second passed like stretched-out minutes, so intense was the concentration in Galen’s head. Galen drew, intending to cut down the older man but his eye told him that the younger man, though starting later, was faster, so, midstream, Galen shifted and shot the young man dead center in the chest.

  Seeing that the older man had almost reached sighting position, Galen jumped sharply to the left and fired. The man’s shot came first but missed, whizzing by Galen’s head. That gave enough split second timing for Galen to aim more sharply and hit the man in the center of the forehead.

  The older man joined the younger on the ground. The younger, barely conscious with blood oozing from his chest, tried to lift his gun to fire a last round but he could not.

  The confrontation was over.

  Galen returned to the bar to find the boy still lying down but with eyes wide open shaking with fright.

  “Easy, boy,” Galen said. “Nothing to worry about now. I know you’ve heard way too many gunshots around here but it’s all over now.”

  The boy looked up at Galen for a long moment. Seeing something there that gave him hope he relaxed a little and tried to sit up.

  “Slow down, son,” he said. “You’ve had a long spell.”

  The boy waved him off, struggled to sit up and dangled his feet over the side of the bar. He looked around then fixed hard on Galen’s eyes.

  “Where is everybody?” he said.

  FIVE

  Galen didn’t answer the boy. He figured waking up from a journey into the edge of death was not the time for details. Instead, he turned to the business at hand.

  “Those shots you heard. . . that was a couple of bandits come to town to steal and ransack. They decided that rather than turn around and go back home they’d try to go through me. They didn’t know what they were up against and that’s why they’re out there lying in the street.”

  The boy let himself down to the floor, walked over to the window and looked out. “Geeze, mister. You took both of them?”

  Galen nodded imperceptibly.

  “I wish I’d watched that.”

  Galen tapped one index finger on the top of the boy’s head. “You’re a bit young for that,” he said.

  “What you gonna do with them?”

  “Smart question,” Galen said, “because if the rest of them no-good’s find them lying in the street they’ll burn this town to the ground.”

  “You could carry them to the river.”

  “Too far away.”

  “Set them on fire.”

  Galen looked at the boy like he was seeing him for the very first time. “They’d leave their ashes behind. . . and a few bones probably,” he said.

  “Then what?”

  “There’s a half dug grave up on the hillside over there. I figure I’ll dig a little deeper, dump them in there and cover them up real good so the skunks don�
�t drag ‘em to the surface again. Then I’ll take one of their horses for you to ride and set the other out on the prairie where the Comanche can find it and take it for their own. I want no evidence the men were ever here. Not a hair or a scratch. When their comrades come looking for them it will be like they got evaporated by a bolt of lightning. I’m even going to cover over their blood spots in the street.”

  The boy was not fazed by the discussion. He even looked a little excited. “I’ll help,” he said.

  Galen went around to the livery and brought out a flatbed wagon, dumped the bodies on the bed and hauled them up the hill to the gravesite, arms and legs all dangling akimbo. An hour later they were in the ground. The boy helped dig a little.

  Galen took the wagon back to the livery then went out with a cedar branch and swept away the wheel ruts in the dust. He transferred the bags of loot onto the finest of the two remaining horses and cut loose the other to the fate of the wind.

  “Can you ride?” he asked the boy.

  “Can a duck float?” he responded.

  ****

  When they got back to Possum Trot a crowd gathered around.

  “Who is this?” asked the parson.

  Galen chuckled. “I plum forgot to ask his name,” he said.

  “Ethan Johnson,” said the boy, loud and clear.

  No one asked about his parents and he never brought it up.

  ****

  Jake was up and at ‘em like a jaybird in a herd of locusts. He wanted to put tracks between him and the rest of the prairie bandits hiding out somewhere behind him. The day was one of those still days, arriving like an Apache tracker, moving without sound across the sky.

  Now he had three horses, the two he started with and the paint he’d taken from the fallen bandit. Turns out it was a fine horse, strong withers, good teeth, a spirited toss of the head. . . he tied it on back and took off.

  The foothills of the Rocky Mountains rose on the horizon like sentries at the gate of a large palace. He could almost feel the cool mountain air on his sun-scorched face. He whistled a little “Jenny Jenkins” as he rode along.

  He saw a patch of green off to the right and reasoning that it would be water, turned his little caravan that direction. A cluster of trees revealed a small pond fed by a little spring rising like a mirage among the prairie grass and mesquite. The horses filled their bellies. Jake rested under the branches of a Live Oak tree, stunted by harsh sunshine, somehow clinging to the edge of the pond for sustenance long enough to provide him a little shade.

  He thought of Possum Trot and wondered how things were going back there. He wondered how Lily was taking his absence. Concluding that she probably wasn’t the least disturbed or surprised he shifted his thoughts to the mountain cabin he was headed toward. A man could find his soul in a place like that.

  Refreshed, he rotated the horses and began his journey.

  Two hours later, along the ridge off to his left he saw five horsemen riding. Closer inspection revealed the regalia of Indians, feathers, capes, bows. . .

  He knew they were aware of him, probably had tracked him for miles, probably some splinter group of the Comanche, so far out here in the wild high planes that they had little or no communication with their brothers closer to the advancing line of white folks.

  He knew sooner or later, they would come down.

  True it was. As they reached a saddleback in the ridge they turned down the incline and approached Jake and his little caravan. As they turned he measured how likely it was he could defend himself with his six gun and rifle. Six gun was good only for about 60 yards, rifle maybe three times that.

  But as they got closer he caught sight of rifles carried by at least three of the men and a wide variety of war paint covering their faces. One was white faced, another moon eyed, a third with stripes of a cat encircling his face. These hombres meant business. They could take everything he had and leave his carcass rotting in the desert.

  To anticipate, he stopped his wagon, dismounted and detached the paint from its place trailing behind. He approached the five riders, now stopped in a line twenty yards away. He held the reins aloft in a gesture of offering and waited. The Indians were stock still and expressionless.

  Directly the one in the center of the line, probably the leader, raised his hand and pointed at the wagon.

  Jake shook his head.

  The leader raised his rifle and shot over Jake’s head. He could feel the bullet whiz by. He had limited options and they were shrinking. He could try to take out the three riflemen before they could fire but he knew that the two with bows and arrows would be fast enough to get off at least one good arrow before he got them. If he got them. The fact that he was already not dead meant that they were not necessarily intent upon killing him, just wanted his goods.

  They took the wagon, his best horse and left him with the paint, a saddle, bedroll, and a modest supply of jerky. He looked upon it as a fair trade: his life for a wagon and a couple of horses. Could have been worse. They might have wanted retribution for what the white man was doing to their civilization. Best to just put your head down and keep moving. At least you still have a head.

  He rode on, a man on a purloined paint, content that he still had his life in his pocket and hopeful that Colorado would be a little more welcoming.

  SIX

  “Teach me,” he said.

  Galen had found Possum Trot to be in a constant state of alarm. George at the General Store had armed himself with a Remington at his side and a double barrel twelve gage under the counter. Sterling Jennings at the bank hired a guard and even Ruth Ann at the Outfitter’s Shop had a Derringer. “If they take me down I’ll take one with me,” she said.

  The Angel Dust Saloon continued in its operations under the two whores, Rosalie and Martha turned proprietors after Horse Diggins left town on the run, and though they were not armed themselves Oscar had a regular arsenal behind the bar.

  The only person who hadn’t changed was Jebediah Tull, the preacher man whom everybody assumed was now in his true element, he with his all black attire and a long pistol slung low at his hip always looking like a wannabe outlaw. Something about that man loved violence.

  The boy, Ethan Johnson, kind of got adopted. He took up a room under the stair where Galen and Crissy lived on the farm that was Jake Paxton’s before he left town for Colorado and passed the farm over to Galen and Crissy with no more than a word that sounded something like “take care of things around here” then off he went. Ethan transitioned quickly and pitched in on the chores around the place. It was he who wanted training in the handling of the quick draw.

  They were standing in the corral out behind the barn.

  “You’re too young,” Galen said.

  Ethan eyed him with suspicion. “Just how old were you when you got started?” he said.

  Galen said nothing, just turned away. Ethan followed. “So you want me to get killed for being unable to defend myself?” he said. “In case you don’t remember I’ve seen what those men can do and I don’t want to sit on the front porch fiddling with a whittling stick waiting for them to come around and do their business.”

  Galen stopped walking. He turned and looked at the boy. He saw the fire in the boy’s eye. He saw determination. He saw himself when he was fourteen. “Pick a target,’ he said.

  Ethan looked around for something difficult enough, something that put the stray bullets headed in a direction away from civilization.

  “There’s a tin can on yonder post.” Ethan pointed to a paint can about thirty yards away on top of a fence post. Behind the post was nothing but open spaces. Galen looked at the can and back at Ethan. A smirk twisted Ethan’s face.

  “First thing you got to know is that shooting is only partly a matter of accuracy and practice.”

  “What else is there?”

  “Your brain.”

  “Oh sure, you gotta think what you’re doing.”

  “More than that.”

  Ethan l
ooked curious.

  “Watch my every move,” said Galen, “and when you see me staring at the can it’s my brain connecting to that can, connecting so hard I know its history, how long it’s been there. If it were alive I’d have a good idea how much coffee it had for breakfast this morning.”

  “Cow droppings,” said the boy.

  Galen laughed. “Smart ass,” he said. “With an attitude like that you won’t hit the broad side of a barn. You gotta direct that bullet to its target, gotta twist it into the line it needs to hit what you want it to.” He stopped. Saw skepticism on the boy’s face and a lot more. “Okay. You don’t believe me,” he said. He started looking at the can. “There are a lot of dead gunslingers out there,” he said, “and you may have noticed, I’m not one of them.”

  With that Galen turned his body fully to face the direction his eyes went, fixed on the target. The look turned into a stare that intensified so hard it appeared he was burning a hole in the tin. He held it in view. Nothing in the surrounding world meant anything. Directly, he drew and fired and knocked the can up into the air. Before it could reach ground he fired again and kept it airborne, landing one more shot before it hit the turf where it stirred up a small cloud of dust.

  “Holy shit,” said the boy.

  Galen turned to the boy and nodded. “I’d wash your mouth but I’ll take what you said as a sign of respect.”

  “Show me how you did that,” Ethan said.

  Galen holstered his gun without taking his eye off the boy. “I just did,” he said.

  ****

  Lily Christianson finished milking her cow and turned her out to pasture. She picked up the bucket full of fresh warm milk and headed back to the house. Along the way she poured some in a broad dish for the feral cats, six of them, who came running.

  At the springhouse under the willow tree she opened the door and pulled a funnel down from the shelf above, curling the milk into bottles which she stoppered with paper plugs then set them into the water where they would cool over night. Tomorrow she would hitch the wagon and start her delivery to the townsfolk so that fresh milk would be on their doorstep for breakfast.