Deadwood Gulch

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.”