CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was pretty dark before we got close to Howard’s land. “It
must be close to nine,” I said. “Hope they don’t jump the gun on us, Chester.”
Chester thought about it for a second. “I figure that
Jackson’ll stick by his word, Mr. Dillon.”
“If Howard lets him,” I said.
There was a crack of lightning, followed by a roll of
thunder. It was the fourth in about ten minutes.
“You know,” said Chester, “we may get a break from this heat
if that storm comes this way.”
I wanted to agree with him, but had to shake my head. “No,
I’d say it’s only heat lightning. All thunder and no rain.”
Chester sighed. “Well, if this goes on a few more weeks, this
prairie’ll be dried right down to the nub.”
The sun had vanished entirely now, and the lingering blue air
was turning purple, and about to change to black. There was no moon, tonight,
of course. That would’ve been too much luck. The only light we had was from the
lightning, a few miles off.
We were close to Howard’s fence when we heard a voice call
through the darkness. “Alright! Hold it! Pull up them horses!” It was Fenton.
There was another flash of lightning, and Chester whispered
to me, “He’s right there by the fence, Mr. Dillon.”
“Yeah, I saw him.”
“Who’s there?” shouted Fenton. “Well, speak up!”
I raised my voice and said, “I usually answer bushwackers
with a six-gun. This is your lucky night, Fenton.”
Fenton even sounded apologetic. “Oh, Marshal! I – I didn’t
know…”
“Where’s your boss?” I called.
“I’m right here,
Dillon!” Howard came riding up to the edge of the fence. “‘Bout time you got
here. That mob may try to rush the fence any minute now.”
Jackson wasn’t so far away he couldn’t hear us. “Not yet,
Howard,” he said. “I told the Marshal nine o’clock! You got five minutes yet.”
“Come on over here, Jackson!” I shouted, riding my horse
close to the fence. “I want you to hear this too!”
Jackson rode over slowly and looked me over. “I kinda wish
you’d stayed outta this, Marshal. Rather not’ve fought against ya.”
“Nevermind,” I said. “Mr. Howard – by the authority vested in
me as a US Marshal, and under the territorial laws and ordinances of the United
States, I’m hereby declaring a state of acute emergency, due to the drought.”
Howard squinted at me. “What’re you talking about, Dillon?”
“I’m invoking the US Territorial Ordinance Schedule of 1858,
Section 7-21-C,” I said. I had the book in my hand, but didn’t have to
reference the number. I’d memorized it on the ride out.
Howard looked suspicious – as well he might. “What’re you
tryin’ to say?”
“Just this,” I told him. “For the duration of the emergency,
I’m taking charge of Cottonwood pond in the name of the United States
Government. And I’m allocating use of it to Mr. Jackson here, to water his
herd. Now, if you want to try to make a deal with him, you’ve got five minutes
before I cut the wire and open the fence.”
Jackson didn’t crack a smile, though he was sitting a little
taller in the saddle. He looked at Howard. “I’ve never bought water before –
but I’ll give you ten cents a head, Howard. How ‘bout it?”
Howard looked back and forth between Jackson and me, then
spat. “I’ll see ya dead first. And I’ll be struck dead myself before I see one
head of your stock onta my property! Dillon, I don’t know what’s behind this
move. Maybe you sold out, made a deal o’yer own…”
“Easy, Howard,” I said.
“If not, then you’ve lost your mind!”
“Your five minutes are running out,” I said. “Now what are
you going to do?”
“Fight!” shouted Howard. “What’dya think I’m gonna do?”
“Gonna resist the law?”
Howard shook his fist angrily. “You call it the law, I don’t!
Dillon, I’m givin’ my boys orders to shoot any man who lays a hand on this
fence! And that goes for you, too!”
“Listen to me, Howard,” I said, leaning forward in my saddle.
“You’ve got a chance to do something that costs you nothing and means life or
death to somebody else, and you’re refusing to do it! Now, I’m sorry you see it
that way. But in any case, this herd gets water.”
Howard gave me his best dead eye. “Maybe they will.” He
turned his horse around and call out loudly to his men. “Alright, boys, you
heard it! Keep that fence covered!” They cheered him. He’d already gotten them
pretty riled up – probably promised them a part of the herd once Jackson and
his men were dead. ”If they want a fight,” cried Howard, “they’ll get one!”
I turned to Jackson and sighed. “I guess I’m gonna need some
deputies.”
Jackson smiled, though his eyes didn’t soften any. “Well, I
got twenty-five men here, Marshal. They’re yours if you want ‘em.” As we rode
towards the men they cheered us, Jackson and Chester and me. I guess both sides
were pretty riled up. And I was going to be the match to this fuse. But at
least I was fighting on the right side.
“Alright, boys,” I said to the cowboys. “Will you all raise
your right hands.” They did. “Do you swear to uphold the Constitution,
ordinances, and bylaws of the United States to the best of your abilities, so
help you God?”
Jackson led them in saying, “I do.”
“Alright, now,” I called. “You’re all temporary deputy
Marshals, acting under my orders. Now bunch the cattle this way and start ‘em
through the fence as soon as I open the wire.”
“They won’t need much startin’, Marshal,” said Jackson’s
wrangler – I’d heard Jackson call him Pecos. No wondering where he was from. He
was a big man, and looked like he could wrestle any of his steers to the
ground. “They’ve been smelling that water for hours,” he said.
I dismounted. So did a few of the men. Most would have to
keep their horses to guide the steers through the hole I was going to cut in
the fence. Chester and I hobbled our horses on a sad-looking little tree about
thirty yards from the fence. I had a second pistol in my saddle-bag and I
dropped it in the pocket of my coat. I checked the load in the one at my hip.
“Now, men, don’t shoot unless you’re fired on. If you are, then protect
yourselves and your herd.” I looked around at them. They were about as ready as
could be. “Alright, let’s go!”
There was no way to disguise the fact that a hundred or so
steers were getting ready to rush the fence. I only hoped Howard’s men wouldn’t
know exactly where to shoot until we were through. The darkness was helping us
– for the moment. Still, the men were free to make as much noise as they
wanted. I heard Jackson call out to Pecos. “Keep those flankers close and the
men toward the openin’ here. If’n they crowd on that fence, they’ll cut
themselves to ribbons!”
“Right, boss!” I heard Pecos call. “C’mon over this way!” he
called – either to the cowboys or the cattle, I couldn’t tell.
“Chester,” I said. “C’mere a minute.”
Chester came ambling up with that lazy walk of his. Nothing
seemed to hurry him. “Yessir.”
“You got the wire-cutters?” I asked.
“Yessir,” he said. “Here y’are, Mr. Dillon.” Holding out my
hand I could barely see the outline of the wire-cutters as he passed them over.
They were cool in my sweaty palm. “You know,” said Chester, “I think we got a
fight on our hands.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Alright. Keep me covered.”
“Yessir, Mr. Dillon.” He lifted the gun out of the rifle boot
by his saddle.
Jackson had dismounted, and he came up to us. He’d heard me
give Chester his orders. “Chester, was it?” he said. “I’ll watch the left over
here.”
“Alright, Mr. Jackson.”
I crept up to the fence, keeping low, to a place right in
line with the pond. It was where they’d suspect I’d make the cut, but I wanted
to create a straight line between the steers and the water. The last few feet I
snaked along on my belly, my gun at my hip, the wire-cutters low by my side,
under my coat. It was a good thing, too. One of those flashes of heat-lightning
ripped the sky open behind me, but there was nothing for Howard’s men to see
except a large lump on the ground – no man walking forward, no reflections off
a gun-barrel or wire-cutters. I waited for my eyesight to adjust back to the
darkness, then I crouched as low as I could and cut the bottom piece of
barbed-wire. It made a sound like a guitar-string when it snaps, but over the
noise of the cattle, I was pretty sure Howard’s men couldn’t’ve heard it. Well,
there was one strand gone. I raised myself up just a little bit and opened the
jaws of the wire-cutter for the second strand. That was when the lightning
revealed me to the thirty or so guns on the other side.
I heard Fenton shout, “They’re cuttin’ the fence, Mr.
Howard!”
Howard’s response was immediate. “Let ‘em have it, boys!”
The shooting started. The air around me was alive with little
lead flies darting past me, humming through the air or pelting the earth. So
far, none of them hit me, though one smacked into the fence-post beside me.
As I cut the second strand, I remember thinking, Alright,
Chester, fire at the flash, and I imagined I could hear him murmur, Yessir.
Then Chester and Jackson and a few of Jackson’s men opened fire, and I could
hear at least one scream from the other side of the fence. I cut the third
strand.
Chester rolled up closer to me and snapped off another shot.
“Oh my gracious,” he said. “I wish there was a moon.”
“One more strand,” I told him. He shot and rolled away as a
hail of bullets came his way, drawing the fire away from me.
“Where’s Howard?” asked Chester, a little louder. He was
answered by a shot.
I heard Jackson shout from somewhere on my other side, “I
spotted ‘im.” His words were followed by a shot of his own and another shout.
It didn’t sound like Howard, but you never know what’ll happen to a man’s voice
when he’s been shot.
I clipped the last wire. Then, gathering the four barbed-wire
strands in my handkerchief, I dashed off to the other fence-post, opening up a
wide gap. “Now!” I called out loud.
Jackson stood and shouted, “Alright, boys! The fence is open!
Bring ‘em through!”
I ran through the gap I’d made, Chester folowing close behind
me. “Come on through, boys!” I called.
The cattle didn’t need much prompting. At the first shouts
they started pushing and bumping each other through the open fence. Some of
Jackson’s men took up positions in lines on either side of the fence, funneling
the steers through the gap. The cowboys hollered and whooped it up as their
herd raced past them towards the water.
I was listening for shouts from the other side. What
surprised me was the fact that Howard’s men weren’t shooting anymore.
“Heads up, Chester,” I said, drawing my gun for the first
time. “They won’t give in this easy.”
“You can hear ‘em out there,” said Chester, “but you can’t
see ‘em through the dust.” The cattle were kicking up quite a cloud, and a wind
was blowing the dust in, towards Howard’s men, covering them even in the
flashes of lightning that were coming more and more often now.
“Well, come on,” I said. “Let’s try to find Howard. I’m gonna
take him in for attempted murder.”
We ran along the inside of the fence, then turned inward,
putting ourselves between Howard’s barn and the pond.
“Last time I heard ‘im,” said Chester, “he was down along the
fence here, somewheres.”
That was when I saw the bobs of light coming towards us. It
wasn’t lightning. It was a torch, coming from around behind the barn. The first
torch was followed by another, and another.
“Alright, boys!” came Howard’s voice through the dust. “Fire
the grass!”
Beside me, Chester said, “Lookit them torches, Mr. Dillon!”
Both Chester and I fired into the dust, aiming at different torches. When the
first two torches fell, I thought we’d hit them. But then all the torches went
down, and the fire rose up.
“They’re setting fire to the grass!” said Chester,
disbelieving.
“Yeah,” I said. “As dry as it is, they’ll set the whole
prairie blazing.”
The shots were coming again. Now that they’d dropped their
torches, they had lifted up their rifles and continued to shoot at us.
“Come on, Chester!” I turned and ran back to the fence.
“Jackson!” I called. “Get your herd through the fence! They’re trying to
stampede them!”
Jackson looked at me in the dim light from the growing fire.
“It’ll take more’n fire to turn those cattle away from water.”
I looked at the herd, and nodded. “I guess you’re right. But
that fire is real trouble. Look, send as many of your boys as you can to help
me. We gotta get that fire stopped and fast.”
