Guns of the Vigilantes

A man screamed and continued to scream, splintering the silence of the morning. Dan Caine retrieved something from his saddlebags and then he and Clint Cooley warily walked down the hill to witness the effect of the balloon’s attack. Seven men, among them Dave Shannon and Clay Kyle, lay sprawled on the ground. Shannon was dead, Kyle mortally wounded. Nearby lay the headless body of James Duran, recognizable only by his expertly tooled gun rig.

The screaming man’s belly had been ripped open, purple intestines coiling on the ground beside him, and Clint Cooley shot him in the head, ending his agony.

All the others except Kyle were dead. The effect of Professor Latchford’s fragmentation bombs, bursting in the middle of the gathered outlaws, had been horrific. Behind Dan and Cooley, Estella Sweet was violently sick, and Holt Peters looked stunned, his young face ashen. Only the Kiowa seemed unmoved.

Cornelius Massey, conjuring up vivid memories in his mind, talked more to himself than the others. “On the last day of Gettysburg, I saw the bodies of Pickett’s men who’d walked into the mouths of cannons loaded with double canister. Until today, I thought I’d never see the like again.”

“It’s a sight to see, newspaperman,” Cooley said. Then to Dan, “Kyle is still kicking, but only barely.”

Dan’s shadow fell over the wounded man as he stepped beside him. Kyle had a massive chest wound and was dying fast. He looked up at Dan and said, “So you’re the vigilante? You ain’t much.”

“Clay Kyle,” Dan said, “I arrest you for the murders of Tom Calthrop, his wife Nancy, his sons Jacob and Esau and his daughters Rose and Grace. And for the unlawful transportation and confinement of a person against their will. That person is Jenny Calthrop, daughter of the deceased Tom and Nancy.”

Dan kneeled and shackled Kyle’s hands with cuffs he’d taken from his saddlebags. “You will now be taken to Thunder Creek to face trial and execution, at the judge’s convenience.”

“You damned rube,” Kyle said. “The only place I’m going is hell.”

“Make it easier on yourself, Kyle,” Dan said. “Tell me the whereabouts of Jenny Calthrop and your accomplice Susan Stanton.”

“I looked for them and couldn’t find them,” Kyle said. “And neither will you. Now go away, let me die in peace.”

He closed his eyes, opened them again, and tried to spit at Dan, but succeeded only in drooling bloody saliva over his bearded chin. “You damned fool,” he said, “you won’t hang anyone in Thunder Creek. It was your sheriff who planned the whole thing.”

Dan Caine felt like he’d been punched. “Kyle, you’re a liar,” he said.

Kyle grimaced a smile. “Except for Chinamen, dying men don’t lie. Chance Hurd told us that Tom Calthrop had a big stash of money hidden in his ranch house. He said if we found it, the split would be fifty-fifty. We toasted Calthrop’s toes at the fire, but he swore he was broke, that there was no money.” Now Kyle struggled to speak. “Well, Suzie Stanton got angry. She shot Tom Calthrop and then the shooting became general. See, we was all riled up. It was Suzie’s idea to take the girl as . . . as insurance and she said later we could sell her in Old Mexico.”

“I was there with Hurd,” Dan said. “You never came near Thunder Creek.”

“Me and Chance Hurd rode together a time back,” Kyle said. “He knew he could write to my brother in Waco and I’d get the letter. It . . . it took months to plan.” He smiled. “And you never guessed what was happening right under your nose.” Blood filled Kyle’s mouth and he said, “You . . . stupid . . . ignorant . . . rube . . .”

Cooley looked down at the outlaw and said, “He’s gone, Dan.”

Dan Caine nodded. Said nothing.

“Looks like Chance Hurd is as guilty as Kyle was, huh?” Cooley said.

“Seems like.” Dan rose to his feet. “When we get back to Thunder Creek, I aim to lock Hurd up in his own jail and see him hang.”

“We all heard what Kyle said, Dan,” Massey said. “We’ll be your witnesses.”

“Deputy Caine, we’re vigilantes,” Holt Peters said. “We’ll still be vigilantes when we return to Thunder Creek.”

“Holt is right,” Estella said. “We’ll make Sheriff Hurd pay for his crimes.”

“I appreciate that,” Dan said. “But let me deal with Hurd.”

“I’ll back you, Dan,” Clint Cooley said. “Chance Hurd is good with a gun.”

“And I’m learning,” Dan Caine said. “I’m learning fast.”

He looked at Kyle. “Let him lie there and rot with the cuffs on his wrists. And as for the rest of them, outlaws neither expect nor deserve to be buried decent with words said over them. We can’t dig holes in solid rock.” His gaze moved to the timbered sky-island high on the mountain slope. “Can we get up there?” he said.

Cooley shook his head. “A mountain goat could, but not a human. Dan, they’re dead. They couldn’t survive a crash like that.”

“No, I guess they couldn’t,” Dan said. “It’s a pity. Now Professor Latchford and Miss Prunella will never go to the moon.”

Estella said, “My guess is that those two are there already, looking around hand in hand and making friends with the moon folk.”

“It’s comforting to think that way,” Massey said.

“Damn right it is,” Dan said.

“Black-Eyed Suzie Stanton isn’t among the dead,” Cooley said. “Like Kyle said, she must be with Jenny.”

“We’ll spend the rest of the day searching for them,” Dan said. “If we don’t find them, then come first light tomorrow, we’ll head for Thunder Creek. Maybe Chance Hurd will know where they are.”

Cooley sloshed the contents of his half-empty canteen. “Water is low, Dan. And all we got left to eat are a few stale tortillas.”

“Dave Shannon must have a permanent camp around here somewhere with supplies,” Dan said. “We’ll search for that too.”

The search for Susan Stanton and Jenny Calthrop lasted most of the day but turned up nothing. The stench of decaying bodies led to a camp under a rock shelf, the rocky ground strewn with empty rifle cartridge cases, but Susan and the girl were long gone.

“Looks like Kyle had a standoff here with Dave Shannon, but later they became allies,” Clint Cooley said. “I guess they figured that we were the common enemy.”

“Seems like,” Dan said. He looked around him. “Kyle lost men here.”

“And I bet Shannon did too,” Cooley said. “That’s when they decided that it was better to kill us than each other.”

“And we won,” Holt Peters said, smiling.

“In a manner of speaking, yeah, I guess we did,” Dan said. “Kyle and Shannon are dead, and we’re still alive. But we don’t have Jenny Calthrop, so to sum things up . . . we won and lost.”

The day was beginning its slow shade into night when the Kiowa found Dave Shannon’s camp. A search of the tents uncovered a good supply of flour, beans, salt pork, and vegetables and peaches in cans. There was also a sack of coffee, sugar to go along with it, and to Dan Caine’s joy a plentiful supply of Bull Durham and cigarette papers.

In the end, all agreed that they wouldn’t go hungry on the trail back to Thunder Creek.