Chapter Seven

 

Scart Benjamin and his men had meanwhile been making good their escape.

They were lucky and although on foot when they fled the battle at Tamaloosa, they had stumbled through the darkness and come by luck upon an outlying settlement that was quartering mules for army supply trains.

The guardian of the stock had made little objection when Crome had shoved a pistol up one of his nostrils and bade him shut his mouth and look the other way. The elderly muleteer had backed off rapidly, allowing the four men to take what they wanted from his poor house and ride off with four mules and a spare, backpacked with a month’s food from his meager supplies.

The wounded Mack brother had taken a clean shoulder wound and despite the pain and irritation bore up well and made little complaint. They rode north at first and then circled around in a wide curve to come back to a southwesterly direction, heading for the badlands with the intention of losing the following posse in the rough country.

The travelling was hard and relentless as the following members of Tarfay’s Ranger Company, despite not having their sergeant with them, kept on their trail with the hardy determination they were renowned for. The outlaws maintained a steady lead and on the fifth month of their escape ran into a party of four men; two Land Office surveyors and their Mexican scouts camped in a dried out river bed.

Scart was friendly in his initial approach.

‘How do?’ he called as they approached the surveyor’s camp.

The head surveyor, a burly, friendly fellow called Cyrus Williams stood to greet them, a coffee pot in one hand.

‘Howdy, what are you men doing out here in the wild? I thought Jack and I were the only white faces in a hundred miles.’

‘I guess we’re lost,’ grinned Scart, self-effacingly. ‘Trailing a herd and went off after some strays and what do you know? Couldn’t find our way back. Then we ran into a bunch of Apache and had a fight on our hands. Now we’re out of water as well as luck.’

‘Well, get on down and join us. We got hot coffee and water’s not far off.’

‘That a fact? Well, obliged for the invite and the information. Come on fellows,’ he said calling to the others as he dismounted. ‘Let’s join these boys for a spell. Sure could use a fresh cup of coffee.’

‘Name’s Cyrus Williams and this is my associate, Jack Tarr,’ said the surveyor, holding out his hand in greeting.

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,’ said Scart, taking the offered hand. ‘What’re you boys doing here?’

‘Oh, we’re mapping out the territory for the government.’

‘A lonely job,’ commiserated Scart as he accepted the offered mug of coffee. ‘You being out here all alone, must be a risky business.’

‘Can be sometimes,’ William’s agreed and he noticed Lew Mack’s bandaged shoulder as the brother climbed down awkwardly, ‘Your friend there okay?’ he asked.

Lew’s shoulder wound had taken a sudden turn for the worse without rest and with all their hard travelling and there was some infection in the wound that had left it inflamed and was taking time to settle down.

‘Lew took a scratch from one of those Apache rifles but he’s all right. Tough as nails, ain’t you Lew?’ asked Scart cheerily.

He made no move on the surveyors and once he had determined the closest water supply was at the nearby vedette station of Fort Quail they shared mugs of coffee and made it an apparently sociable visit.

After sitting around their campfire and chatting amiably for a while, Jed Crome sidled up and squatted down beside Scart, under the guise of asking him for some rolling tobacco.

‘You want to make a play for them?’ whispered Crome, as he rolled and licked the paper spill. ‘They’ll only let on to the Rangers we were by here when they catch up.’

‘The Rangers already know where we are; besides I have an idea. We can use these bodies for a better purpose. Go tell the Mack brothers we want it quiet. Use your knives only.’

The other surveyor, Jack Tarr, had been looking at the men silently for some time and frowning suspiciously as he did so. Something did not tie up and he was about to voice his doubts. ‘What I don’t get,’ he said. ‘Is how come you cowboys is riding on mules and not working cowpony’s? You being supposed to have lost your way from a trail herd and all. Kinda strange, isn’t it?’

Scart struck a match and lit up Crome’s cigarette for him, ‘There’s a story there, I’ll tell you,’ he said, with an innocent grin. ‘When them redskin ran off our ponies and Lew there took the bullet, we was lost and on foot….’

Scart climbed to his feet and casually moved over to stand next to the squatting surveyor.

‘Took us a while but we eventually came across this fellow with a wagon and haulage team….’

Behind Tarr’s back, Scart’s hand was on the grip of his knife. The other three outlaws rose equally casually to their feet; Callum Mack to go fill up his mug again from the pot by the fire whilst his brother Lew made as if stretching the cramps out of his wounded arm. Crome made out he was going across to the check on the mules but each man was actually surreptitiously working his way around nearer to his mark. The Mack brothers were both closing on the two Mexicans and Crome heading for Williams whilst Scart was about to handle the suspicious Tarr.

The surveyor looked up over his shoulder at Scart standing beside him, ‘You ain’t cowhands at all, are you?’ he asked, already knowing the answer. ‘What are you? Some sort of absconders running from the law?’

Scart grinned, the broad blade of his knife flashing in the sunlight as he quickly drew it out. ‘Boy! You are the smart one, you truly are, it’s exactly that,’ he said, catching hold of Tarr’s hair and jerking his head back as he drew the razor sharp blade across the surveyor’s throat in one swift savage motion.

The other three made their attacks at the exact same moment, the two Mack brothers diving in on the Mexicans and punching their knives home with repeated regularity. Crome had more difficulty with sturdy Williams, who although taken by surprise, put up a fight and only Crome’s continued slashing kept the surveyor at bay until Callum came up behind him and finished the man off.

Scart was breathing heavily as he made sure all the men were dead; ‘Pile up wood on that fire,’ he ordered. ‘We’re going to roast us some bodies.’

 

********

 

In the gullies and raw country on the fringes of Indian Territory the four outlaws found the isolated vedette station of Fort Quail the surveyors had told them about. The fort was not a regular fort as such, it was no more than a few cabins strung together haphazardly in a broad tree-lined valley and manned by a small force of five men who maintained the lookout and early warning post.

The soldiers had grown casual with little activity in the neighborhood and they spent their days in idleness commanded by a corporal who was as casual in his approach as the rest of his men.

‘We going down there, Scart?’ asked Crome as they sat the horses stolen from the surveyors on the valley rim hidden from view and studying the fort below. ‘This what you’ve got in mind for these stiffs,’ he asked, jerking a thumb at the four stinking tarpaulin covered loads stacked on their mules. They had taken over the surveyor’s ponies and given over their own tired mules to the corpses in exchange.

Once burned beyond recognition, Scart had ordered the mules released from their service as mounts and the charred corpses were stacked on their backs. The remaining supplies and what they could ferret from the surveyor’s camp they divided as best they could amongst their saddlebags.

‘No,’ said Scart. ‘Only one of us is going in. All four would look too suspicious. I’ll head down and beg some coffins for these poor unfortunates.’

‘That’s smart, Scart. If nothing else it’ll buy us some time.’

‘You bet, now give me the lead rein and you fellows circle around the valley and I’ll meet you on the other side.’

 

Corporal Bendix sat on the porch of the cabin, one foot up on the porch rail as he rocked his chair backwards and forwards on its hind legs. He sucked on his empty corncob pipe and wished that their relief would arrive soon so he might bum some pipe tobacco from the incoming men.

He yawned and stretched, catching himself in mid-yawn as he saw the approaching rider with four loaded mules in train.

‘You men!’ he called to the others inside the cabin. ‘Get out here. Rider coming.’

The four men tumbled out in various stages of undress but the thing all of them made sure they had to hand were their rifles.

As Scart pulled up alongside the corporal, Bendix turned his head away at the stench issuing from the tarpaulin-covered mules, none of which looked too pleased with their load either.

‘Phew! Hellfire! Mister, what you got there?’

‘Found these bodies up over the hill,’ answered Scart, leaning casually across his saddle horn. ‘It looks like it’s those unholy outlaws, Scart Benjamin and his gang. Appears the Indians got the worst of them.’

‘Lord!’ sighed Bendix. ‘What you expect me to do about it?’

‘Well, I guess you could do the decent thing and put them in coffins and bury them or send them back to civilization for a proper internment.’

The rest of the soldiers backed away at the odor wafting towards them from the mules. ‘Hey, corp!’ one complained. ‘We ain’t going to have to do that, is we?’

Bendix rubbed his jaw thoughtfully and shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other.

‘Guess it’s our Christian duty,’ he mumbled doubtfully. ‘Just who are you, fellow? And how’d you come across this?’

‘Name’s Williams, I’m surveying for the Land Office with my partner Jack Tarr. Came across these bodies up there in a canyon over the far side of the hill. The bodies was burnt out real bad with a lot of Indian sign around. It was obvious torture and murder been done by those red devils. Found a pair of boots with the name ‘Scart Benjamin’ written inside.’

‘You got those boots with you?’

‘Sure, here you are,’ said Scart, handing over a pair of Williams’ boots he had already prepared with pen and ink from the surveyor’s own kit. ‘See there, it says it plain as day.’ So saying he pulled back the lip and showed the printed text.

Bendix peered close and rubbed his nose, ‘Appears to be,’ he agreed.

‘Look, corporal, I got to head back. My buddy Jack’s up there all alone. What with these redskins close by, I’ve got to go see he’s alright.’

Bendix pushed back his forage cap and scratched his head, ‘Sure hope the bastard’s don’t come by here. We got a payroll train coming through this month heading for Fort Yuma, and I sure don’t want to see that get lost. We’ve all been waiting on getting paid for a long while.’

‘Damned right,’ agreed one of his men. ‘I ain’t seen no pay in a six-month and it’s about time we saw something for sitting out here in this shit hole fighting off nothing but flies.’

‘Sounds mighty important,’ said Scart. ‘Wagons, is it?’

‘It sure is,’ Bendix said, swelling with officiousness. ‘Biggest money train, you’ll ever see. But I got no worries; it’ll be safe enough they got nigh on fifty cavalry riding shotgun on that train. Nobody will lay a finger on the gold.’

‘That a fact?’ said Scart, sounding duly impressed. ‘Out of interest, what do you reckon a load like that’ll be worth?’

‘Hell! Who can say? Just think on all the payments due to the personnel along the chain of our frontier forts, every trader and scout, the officers, non-coms and men, farriers and bull whackers. It’ll be a fair amount, thousands of dollars, you can bet on it.’

‘Sure wish a wad like that was coming my way,’ joked Scart.

‘You and me both, Mister Williams. But I guess I’ll just have to settle with my portion and be happy with that.’

‘Well, I reckon I’ll say good day to you,’ said Scart. ‘I must hurry off and see to my partner’s safety, I’ll leave the mules and come by to collect them later, if that’s alright?’

‘Okay, Mister Williams, they’ll be here. You stay safe yourself, you hear.’

With a wave, Scart rode off hearing the corporal behind him bellowing at the complaining soldiers to get the mules unloaded and their stinking loads in the ground as quickly as possible.

He smiled with slow satisfaction as he cleared the trees and rode up the opposite slope, not only had he seen to it that following Rangers would give up the chase now, but he had also learned of a mother lode that would see them all happy for many a year. It all depended, he considered, if he could find sufficient help that was prepared to take on fifty blue belly soldiers and cut them all down without any qualms.

He reckoned he knew just where he could find such help.