Massacre at Powder River

Chapter Four

Powder River Cattle Company Ranch, Taney Creek

First week of May 1884

Paul Graham, Phil Bates, Emmitt Carol, and Cooter Miles were in the Taney Creek line shack. They had come up two weeks ago to make preparations for the spring roundup.

“What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me you’ve never even had a woman?” Graham asked Emmitt.

Emmitt cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I’m only sixteen. I ain’t never really had the chance to do it. I wouldn’t even know how to go about gettin’ a woman interested in me.”

“Hell,” Bates said. “There ain’t nothin’ to that. All you got to do is go to a whorehouse. If you got the money, whores don’t care how old you are.”

“I don’t know about that. Mama said she didn’t want me seein’ any whores.”

“Where is your mama now?” Cooter asked.

“She’s down in Denver.”

“Then what your mama don’t know won’t hurt her none, will it?”

“Tell you what, boys,” Graham said. “How ’bout the next time we all go into town together, we get this boy broke in. We’ll chip in and buy ’im a whore.”

“Buy him a whore? Hell, most of the time, I don’t have enough money for my own whore, why should I pay for the boy?” Bates asked.

“Because we got to get him broke in good, and I figure the best one to handle that would be Cavalry Mona,” Graham said.

“Ha!” Cooter said. “Yeah, Cavalry Mona. Now, I would be willin’ to help pay for that.”

“Why do they call her Cavalry Mona?” Emmitt asked with some trepidation.

“They call her that ’cause near ’bout ever’one in the United States Cavalry has rode her, at least once,” Bates said.

“I don’t know,” Emmitt said. “Is she pretty?”

All three of the other cowboys laughed. “Is she pretty, you ask? Hell, boy, you don’t go with whores ’cause they’re pretty. You go with ’em because they are there.”

“What do you say, Emmitt? You ’bout ready to become a man?

“I—I think I’d better go down to the creek and get us some water,” Emmitt said, taking the bucket and going outside.

Bates laughed a low, knowing laugh. “You know what I think? I think our Emmitt ain’t all that fired up ’bout beddin’ Cavalry Mona.”

“Who knows?” Graham teased. “I’m thinkin’ maybe we’ll be able to talk him into it,” Graham said.

“Whose time is it to cook breakfast?” Bates asked.

“It’s your time,” Graham and Cooter both replied.

“Well then, I’d better get started.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Graham offered.

The two men started putting together what they would need for breakfast. Bates got out the flour and lard for biscuits, Graham started carving off pieces of bacon.

“I wonder what the hell is keeping Emmitt with the water,” Cooter said. “Maybe I’d better go take a look.”

“Hurry back, I ain’t got enough water to roll out the biscuits with,” Bates said.

Graham got out his book and started writing.

“You’re always writin’ in that book of your’n,” Bates said. “What is it you’re a-writin’, anyhow? You writin’ a story or somethin’? You goin’ to publish a book and become famous? ‘Cooking on the Range with Two Gun Pete,’” he teased.

“I’m not writin’ a book. I’m just takin’ notes is all,” Graham said.

Bates walked over to the window and looked outside. “That’s funny,” he said.

“What?”

“Well, there ain’t neither one of ’em come back yet, and I don’t even see either one of ’em down to the crick.”

Graham walked over to look as well.

“Maybe I’d better go see what’s keepin’ ’em.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Graham said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like the looks of this. I think there might be someone out there keepin’ ’em from comin’ back in.”

Suddenly, a fusillade of shooting erupted and bullets crashed through the window.

Bates moved over to look through the window. “Damn! It’s the Yeller Kerchief rustlers!” he shouted.

“Bates, you better get down.”

There was another episode of heavy shooting, and Bates cried out.

“I been shot! Graham, I been shot!” Bates said.

Bates went down and Graham went over to check on him. Bates had been hit in the stomach and in the side. He was groaning softly.

“Bates? Bates?”

Bates tried to get up.

“No, I think you’d be better off if you don’t move. Wait, I’ll see what I can do about stoppin’ the bleedin’.”

Staying low on the floor, Graham crawled over to the bunk and pulled off a blanket. Returning to Bates, he tore the blanket into a couple of strips and wrapped them around Bates, covering the wounds.

“Thanks,” Bates said.

Graham raised up to look outside, and he could see a few people moving around. He took a couple of shots at them, but didn’t hit anyone. He took another look at Bates. Bates’s eyes were closed and he was breathing in shallow, gasping breaths.

Graham moved over to another part of the cabin and began writing.

Me and Bates was fixin breakfast when the attack come. Emmitt had already went down to the crick after water and when he did not come back Cooter went to see what the matter was and he didn’t come back neither. Bates started to go see what was keepin the two of them but I told him I think there might be someone out there that wasn’t lettin the other two come back. Then suddenly shootin started and Bates looked out the winder and said, “Damn it’s the yeller kerchief rustlers.” Then Bates got shot but he didn’t get kilt yet.

Over the next two hours, the shooting continued, heavier sometimes than others, but never so light as to give Graham the idea that if he tried to leave he could make it. But he wouldn’t leave anyway, not with Bates too badly hurt to leave with him.

“Bates?” Graham called. “Bates, how are you doin’?”

“I ain’t doin’ all that well,” Bates replied, the pain evident in his voice.

“Don’t you be dyin’ on me now, pard, you hear me? I don’t want to be left all alone here.”

There were several more shots and the bullets sounded like pebbles rattling off the thick-sided line shack.

“You reckon Emmitt an’ Cooter is dead already?” Bates asked.

“I reckon so.”

“I’m goin’ to die too, ain’t I?”

“Pard, I reckon both of us are goin’ to die,” Graham replied.

“Yeah. Well, at least me ’n you had us a woman. Emmitt never had him one a-tall. Wish we could’a got him to town and done what we was goin’ to do.”

Bates grew quiet after that, and Graham went back to his writing.

It is now about two hours since the first shot. Bates is still alive, but he is in awful bad shape. They are still shootin and are all around the house. Boy’s, there are bullets coming in like hail. Them fellows is all hid behind rocks and such so good that I can’t get at them. They are shootin from the crick and from the back of the house.

“Bates, I know you’re bad hit, but if you could look out the back and just tell me if they are comin’. It’s kind of hard me tryin’ to hold ’em off all alone like this. Bates?”

Graham went over and put his ear on Bates’s chest to listen for a heartbeat, but he got none.

“You sons of bitches!” Graham shouted through the broken window. He raised up and fired several rounds, but they were fired in frustration only. He knew he didn’t hit anything. Nor could he. Then he saw them pull up a wagon and start loading it with brush and weed. That didn’t look good to him.

He sat back down and started writing again. He was writing now just out of a sense of need to keep himself from going mad with fear.

Bates is dead. He died at about 9 o:clock. And now I can see them loadin brush and wood and such onto a wagon. They got the tongue drawed up and the wagon is pointed toward the shack. I think maybe they might be fixin to set fire to the wagon and push it down the hill toward the line shack. I don’t think they intend to let me get away.

Emmitt and Cooter never did come back. I don’t know if they was kilt or not, but I reckon they was. What with them gone and Bates dead, I’m feelin pretty lonesome just now, and I don’t mind tellin you I’m pretty dam scairt too. I wish there was someone here with me so we could watch all sides at oncet. They may fool around until I get a good shot before they roll the wagon down at me. I’d love to get at least one of the bastards. I tell you this. I ain’t goin to let myself get all burnt up in here. Before they roll that wagon down here, I’m goin to run out of the house, and when I do, I’m goin to come out shootin.

For the time being, the shooting had stopped, except for one or two shots thrown toward the cabin every minute or so just to keep Graham trapped inside. Raising up, he could see them quite clearly now. He thought he recognized one of them.

I see twelve or fifteen men. One looks like Sam Logan, but I don’t know if it is or not. If I had me a pair of glasses I might know some of these men.

I’ve got to look out.

Well, they have just got through shelling the house again like hail. And they got the fire goin good on the wagon and are fixin to push it down on me. Its time for me to go. Goodbye boys, if I don’t never see you again.

The wagon came rolling down toward the line shack, hopped up over the low front porch, then crashed into the side. Within moments the line shack was on fire, and though there were no flames inside yet, the smoke was so thick that Graham could scarcely breathe. Coughing and with his eyes watering and burning, Graham picked up Bates’s pistol so that he had two guns. He entertained the hope that because there was so much smoke, it might cover his escape. Holding on to that thought, Graham cocked both pistols, then kicked the door open and dashed outside, firing both pistols.

There was very little smoke outside, most of it being whipped in through the little cabin by the wind. As a result, Graham found himself standing in the open, looking at a ring of men, all wearing yellow kerchiefs. With a shout of rage and fear, Graham continued to blaze away as at least six of the rustlers fired at him. He felt the first two bullets plunge into his body, but the third hit him in the forehead and his world went black.