BREAKING THE MEDICINE
The man known as ‘Murdering’ Bob Hughes and his gang of outlaws were holed up in a dilapidated old fort out on the prairie. It was the dead of winter and the hills and the plains were white with snow.
The fort was a square stockade fence with buildings inside and a long courtyard. There was snow on the fence and on the roofs.
Bob was sitting at a table in the big room of the headquarters building, reading a newspaper. The room was clouded by tobacco smoke. There were whiskey bottles and glasses everywhere and guns were close at hand.
Bob hated the fort. It was a lousy, rat infested, hell-hole, and he felt trapped in it. He hated the leaky roofs, the musty smell, the damp, and the outhouse. He hated how the place was falling down around them. He wanted to get back in the saddle and ride across the plains but because of winter they were stuck in the fort.
There was a log stove in the big room and everyone came there because it was warm. Bob sat with his boots up on the table. His wife Anna sat across from him, with her chair turned sideways while she brushed little Bobby’s hair. That is, Robert Hughes Junior, Bob’s three year old son.
Ace, Charlie and Jose were playing cards. Others were clustered by the stove. There was tension in the room. A few days back they had their Christmas caboodle. Everyone got roaring drunk and Bob had jawed with Ace. Somehow it hadn’t gone down to shooting and they made a truce but they still hated each other a little.
So Bob kept to himself and looked at the pages of the newspaper but he brooded on other things.
They all thought they would be safe in that fort until the snows melted and they could ride again, but then the bell tolled in the watchtower and that was the first sign that something wasn’t right.
It was the last day of 1870 and the watchers had seen something. Bob looked up from the newspaper. The others were uneasy. Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling! The bell sounded strange and foreboding in the cold still air.
Bob slapped the newspaper down on the table and stood up. He adjusted his gun belt and put on his black hat.
“I’m gonna go see what’s up.” He picked up his Henry rifle and went out the door.
It was cold outside and his cavalry boots crunched in the snow. He had been an outlaw for five years. The hair under his black stetson hat was dark and close cropped. He had a big black moustache that covered his mouth. He wore a black leather hunting jacket with long trailing tassels. He wore the light blue union cavalry pants with the yellow stripe running down the sides.
He crossed the courtyard to the tower where the bell had sounded. When the fort was first built there were two lookout towers at diagonal corners of the square fence. Now only one of those towers still stood. The other had collapsed and was now a snow buried ruin at the corner by the gate.
The remaining watchtower had a great view over the snowy hills and prairie. But the collapsed tower was a problem. It left them half blind. Which meant, as Bob said, that they had to be twice as vigilant in the remaining tower. And he made damn sure they were vigilant. Bob had a man in that tower at all times no matter how cold it got and they hated him for it. They wouldn’t have stood for it except that they all feared him. They didn’t fancy their chances against him in a gunfight. And then there was how he was too good an outlaw to abandon. He had turned over more trains, banks and stagecoaches than anyone out there apart from Jesse James maybe. He had made them all rich.
Bob saw the sun going down. It was one of those big red prairie sunsets. He went up the tower. It was dark on the stairs. There was a man and a boy up in the tower. There was a long-scoped buffalo rifle standing in the corner. There were icicles hanging off the eaves.
“What’s up Pete?” Bob voice misted the air.
The boy, Pete’s twelve year old son, was looking at a hill through binoculars.
“Someone on that hill’s scopin’ us out. Saw a twinkle from it.”
Bob got a hip flask out of his coat pocket and had a drink.
“Sure you saw it?”
“Ya.”
“How long back?”
“Quarter hour. Thought might be ice but t’aint.”
Bob took the binoculars from the boy and looked at the hill. There wasn’t anything there now.
“Someone’s scopin’ us, sure as shootin’” said Pete.
They went back into the big room and told the others. No-one made much of it and they seemed relieved. Mary asked if it could be Indians but no-one thought they would be out roaming in the depths of winter. Ace insisted they were worrying over nothing. Pete said, after all, it might be fur hunters going out for winter pelts, and that seemed likely but Bob wasn’t settled.
“Ah’m gonna go scout with the Injun.” Bob said.
The indian, who was called Walks-In-Shadows shook his head and for a moment Bob thought he was refusing to go.
“I will go alone,” said the indian. “The white man makes too much noise and is too slow.”
“Well, alright,” said Bob. “If ya think ya can do it then go out there.”
So Shadow-Walker set out from the fort in buckskins and fur-lined moccasins. He wore a wolf pelt over his shoulders with a knife on his belt and a tomahawk in his hand.
Bob left the others talking about how they didn’t trust the Indian and went up to his room to get his guns and ammo ready.
His Henry repeater rifle with its brass receiver and long barrel was a thing of beauty. It had a fifteen round tubular magazine that ran along the underside of the barrel. You could look through a groove and see how many rounds you had left. You could fire as fast as you could work the cocking lever. When you were empty you could drop more rounds down the tube. It was a hell of a gun, thought Bob. He remembered a rebel general had said: “that damned Yankee rifle that can be loaded on Sunday and fired all week.”
All the men had repeater rifles, revolvers, and plenty of ammo. Bob made sure they armed themselves before spending money on red-eye and whores. He would wager that he ran the best armed outlaw gang in the west.
The Indian returned before midnight. He came into the big room and squatted by the stove with a tin mug of coffee while the others gathered around him.
“D’yu find anything?” said Bob.
The Indian drank the coffee, stood, and laid the mug upside down on the mantelpiece above the stove.
“There is a whole camp full of them,” said the Indian. “I tracked them from the hill and found their camp. There were a hundred horses and many men but I could not count them because of the tents. I crawled into their camp and there was a white chief giving a big speech. I could not hear what he said but I stayed back in the shadows and watched.”
“Were they army?” said Bob.
“No. They did not wear the blue uniform of the army but they had a very warlike spirit.”
“Tell me ‘bout this chief o’ theirs,”
“He wore white clothes, very fancy looking, and he was quite young and did not look like a wise man.”
“Bounty hunters?”
“I do not know but I went into this chief’s tent and stole his stuff. It is all in this bag I found there.”
The Indian handed Bob a satchel he had brought back.
“Snakes alive!” Charlie laughed, “Injuns the gosh darndest one ya ever saw, ya done put him on a scout an’ ‘e goes an’ hooks from ‘em!”
“Darnit!” said Ace, “If they done caught you they’d’ve strung you up an’ made you sing!”
Bob grabbed the satchel, tore open the flap, and tipped it out onto the table. There were books, letters, and a map, rolled up and creased. Bob unrolled the map and spread it on the table.
“Fetch that lamp.” He said.
Anna brought the lamp and they saw that it was a well drawn map of the fort and surrounding hills. It showed the enemy camp, and there were arrows and symbols marking out the plan of attack. There was a sketch of the gate rigged to blow with dynamite.
“This is the darndest,” Said Bob, “Looks like some artist done drew alluh this. Like somethin’ out of a book or the illustrated news.”
“So they wanna dynamite the gate?” said Charlie.
“What is it, papa?” said little Bobby. He was walking around wearing his father’s hat, and standing tall, to see what was on the table.
“Never mine Bobby. What kinda outfit draws out alluh their plans like this? Even back in the war ah haint seen nothin’ like this an’ they had cartographers an’ all sorts at headquarters.”
Bell was looking at the other stuff from the satchel. He read the letters and leafed through a book with a brown cover.
“Ya say they got a hundred horse? Then ah reckon that means a hundred men.”
“Crimany!” Ace gasped.
“T’all seems like some big joke,” said Bob. “Like a bunch o’ circus clowns…”
He would have thought it all blarney if the Indian hadn’t come back with proof.
“‘Splains it all here.” said Bell, holding up the brown book.
“This is the guy’s journal. Seems ‘e’s got some artist illustratin’ the whole ‘Expedition’. They wanna blow the gate at dawn, come in here, capture you, and haul you off tuh St. Louis.”
“What about the rest of us?” said Ace.
“Well ‘e just wants Bob, so they’ll prolly just shoot us.”
“Gimme that,” Bob grabbed the book from Bell.
He laid the book down on the table in the circle of lamplight and read. He looked at a letter, then he turned the cover of the brown book and found a name written on the inside. He jabbed his finger into it.
“This dude’s name’s Thomas W. Davenport III.”
“Ah heard that name,” said Doc, “Ain’t he some railroad big bug?”
“This’n must be the brat,” said Bob. “He’s prolly after us fuh robbin’ them trains.”
But then Bob thought about what he had just read. There was something more to this. This wasn’t about the money or revenge. This dude wanted glory.
The Indian told them about the guns and horses of the men in the camp.
“So there’s a hundred well armed men out gunnin’ fuh us?” said Ace. “We gotta belly through the brush on this one, boys!”
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere,” said Bob.
“What are yuh crazy? There’s a hundred o’ ’em an’ nine of us.”
“Ah won’t run from this belvidere son of a bitch.”
“Ifin we stay here we’ll all be cashed-in at this darn hellhole!”
“What’s wrong Ace, too afeared tuh fight?”
“Oh bosh!”
“What we outta do,” Bob squared up to Ace, “Is ride up inner their camp tonight an’ beef ’em all. Make ’em regret ever hearin’ of us.”
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“I wanna fight, Bob,” said Bell, “But ifin we charge in we could wind up in the open with alluh’ ’em rounding us like hounds o’ hell.”
Bob looked black.
“Na hold yer horses Bob, we hold the fort here, right? and we know right whereabouts they’re gonna come, they don’t know we know, so…”
“Yeah,” Bob said, “Yerright. We outta fight ’em here.”
“Y’all crazy!” said Ace
Bob rounded on him.
“Ya better shut yer trap Ace!”
“Thing is,” Bell said to Ace. “If we cut we gotta leave alluh stuff behind an’ they might jes’ ketch us anyhow. They got more horses than us an’ those-.”
“Darnit!” said Ace, “Alright! Ah guess ah’m jestus darn fool crazy as yorn.”
That night they got the fort ready. They filled sacks with snow and stacked them under the windows. They built a barricade across the courtyard. They boarded up the ground floor windows of the headquarters. They put a nail-studded board over the stairs and hacked loopholes in the walls. They removed the steps from the tower and hung a rope instead.
Bob spent that night huddled around a fire in the ruined barracks with Bell, Ace and Charlie. At around nine o’clock he got up and went back to the headquarters. Inside the door there was a cabinet that they would slide across when the attack came. Ted was sitting on a chair by the door with a rifle on his lap, he tipped his hat to Bob. The door to the big room was open. Doc was telling Walks-In-Shadows and Mary about how he wanted the table if he had to do surgery. Bob went upstairs. The room he shared with his wife and son was in the back of the headquarters. There was a curtain in the doorway, his wife and son lay asleep on the bed under a grey blanket. She woke up and little Bobby sat up on the bed and rubbed his eyes.
“Bob?” said Anna.
“Hey, honey,” He kissed her on the forehead.
“Papa.”
“Hey Bobby.”
“Is everything alright?” said Anna.
“Yeah, everything’s gonna be fine. I wanted to give you this.”
He handed her a revolver and she laid in on the blanket. It was a .44 Remington 1858.
“Be careful, it’s loaded.”
“Don’t you need it?”
“Ah’ve got another.”
“alright.”
“Keep it with you. If you gotta shoot, pull back the hammer, point it an’ pull the trigger. Got that?”
“I think.”
“Good. Don’t use it ‘less you have to. Just stay in here with Bobby and keep back from the windows. When all’s over I’ll come get ya.”
“But what’s the gun for?”
“Just in case. Hold onto it. An ifin yer’ gotta cut, go through that crawl space that goes un’er the fence. You know the one I done showed yuh over by the outhouse? Take Bobby ‘n go through there. Take the money if you can but leave everythin’ else behind.”
“You’re scaring me, Bob,”
“Don’t get scared. Everything’ll be alright.”
He lifted little Bobby, hugged him and held him up.
“Now, little man, you’ll look after mama an’ do as she says, won’t ya?”
“Yes, papa.”
“Good bo-oy.”
Bob found he couldn’t sleep when he got back to the barracks so he sat by the fire, drank whiskey and smoked cigars. Bell told a story about a man from Idaho, and Ace thought he knew the same man. Charlie sang a song about a girl while Ace played harmonica. Then everyone came out and they drank together because it was a new year and they were all friends. It had been a good year.
Towards dawn he lay by the wall with a blanket over him. He felt like a town tramp freezing to death on a cold night. Then someone was pulling at his shoulder and it was Bell.
“What’s hap’nin’?”
“It’s seven.”
“Is Pete up in the tower with that big fifty?”
“Ya, he went up’n hour ago with his son.”
Ted came with coffee and beans. While they were eating, Pete’s boy came down and told them that the enemy were coming across the prairie.
“More’n hundred horsemen!” he said.
They finished their breakfast and sat by the dying fire and listened.
Bob thought he heard footsteps outside the gate. A horse snorted in the corral. He raised a hand for silence and signalled to the men at the windows. Doc waved back and the men got down and aimed their rifles at the gate. Bob felt like kicking the gate open and giving whoever was out there a .44 caliber hole in the forehead.
There was a mechanical whirring sound of a spool being unwound. The men looked nervous. There was quiet then, at the end of it, there was a moment of absolute silence.
Then the gates exploded. The two gate halves flew into the courtyard on a fiery avalanche. Buildings rocked and men fell back from the force of the blast.
Bob got up to the window and aimed his rifle.
“They’re comin’ in!” He shouted.
There were hoofbeats and a man on a white horse charged through smoke. He wore a white coat, riding boots, a white hat. He held a pistol high, reins in one hand. His horse was terrified but the man was a great horseman and he got control of it. Then all the guns fired at once and the horse and rider went down in the snow. A mass of men on foot came charging in behind the horseman. The guns kept firing and the men dropped as they came in. Bob didn’t shoot the horseman but now he aimed and shot round after round into the men. They pressed forward, shoulder-to-shoulder, rifles across their chests. They were all packed together, blinded by smoke. They cringed as though walking through a blizzard. Their advance slowed as men got hit, staggered, went down in the snow and tripped. The gunfire never let up because the men in the fort had repeaters.
Bob didn’t know how many men he killed that day. The first shot he fired was a relief, as though he had broken some spell. He kept on firing the whole time, cocking the lever, pulling his aim back on target and firing again. He kept shooting until the men stopped coming. It had all happened so fast. He reckoned it had all lasted less than ten seconds.
He checked his rifle and saw that there were five rounds left in the magazine which meant he had fired ten times. There were heaps of dead men. The snow was all red and there were puddles of blood. The bodies were so heaped up that Bob couldn’t count them. In the breach they were piled so high that the men outside the fort couldn’t get in. And they didn’t want to come in anymore.
Bob took shells off his bandolier and reloaded his rifle. He walked out into the courtyard and stood facing the breach, rifle at his side.
“Come’n fight ya bastards!” His big voice boomed across the courtyard.
“Ya had enough of me?”
He looked at the bloody breach and thought they must have lost half their men in that assault. The best half too.
Charlie came out, cavorting and whooping.
“Bully! We bagged a whole caboodle of ‘em!”
“Now’s the time!” said Bob. “Grab your guns ‘n follow me.”
He turned and waved up to the HQ.
“Doc! Come get the horses ready! We’re goin’ after ‘em!” And he ran, with Charlie, Ace and Bell, toward the ruined tower.
He leapt the low wall into the ruins and struggled through deep snow. He hauled himself up, climbing, and then, as he got up and looked down, he saw men climbing up the other side. He shot the nearest man in the face and that man fell onto the man behind him. He shot another man, then drew his pistol and unloaded it into men at the foot of the tower. Several men ran off and he turned left and saw dozens of men gathered by the breach. They were turning round to look.
“Hell!” Bob said and dived off the tower and got into cover. Bullets sputted the snow around him but none hit and he lay prone and returned fire.
Then Charlie, Bell and Ace came out on top of the tower and the men fired up at them. Charlie yelled and fired back. Ace and Bell jumped down and took cover beside Bob.
Then something landed on Bob. He looked and saw it was Charlie; down and dead with a bullet-hole through the forehead.
“Charlie’s down!” Bob pushed him aside and went on firing.
There were many men against them but they were getting killed out in the open. And so all at once they turned and fled across the prairie. They headed for the horse-herd that stood off in the middle distance.
“They’re runnin!” yelled Ace, “Bastards’re runnin’ away!”
“They’re goin’ for their horses.”
Bob shot his remaining rounds into the backs of fleeing men.
“This one’s fuh you, Charlie!” said Ace and shot a man in the back.
“Doc!” Bob yelled.
“Look!” said Ace “That one’s gotta peg-leg!”
Ace laughed, took careful aim, and shot the man’s wooden leg out from under him. The man rolled over with a pistol and shot Ace in the guts.
“Oof!” Ace said and fell into the snow.
Bob killed the cripple with a headshot. Then he turned, leaving Ace where he lay, and ran for the breach.
“Doc! Bring out the horses!”
They came out with the horses, ploughing their way through the dead. Bob leapt up into the saddle of his big black charger and someone tossed him a loaded Winchester.
“Doc, you ‘n Pete guard the fort. Rest o’ yous mount up. C’mon!” And he kicked his horse into a gallop and charged for the horse herd. The others saw him charging a whole field of horses and dozens of men streaming across the plain. It scared them but their blood was fired and so they followed Bob.
The fleeing men looked up in terror as Bob passed them. If men didn’t get out the way he trampled them into the snow under his horses hooves.
Bob was a legendary rider and the prairie was a cavalryman’s dream. As he neared the horses he raised his rifle and fired. The bullet scoured a horse down the flank, it panicked, tore itself free and then all the horses stampeded. Bob ran through them, shooting down the wranglers, then he turned the horse and went for the enemy camp.
The others couldn’t keep up. Bob was always a hundred yards ahead and they followed in his wake. They saw him scatter the herd like nine-pins, charging right through them and burning the breeze out the other side. Bell, Ted, the Indian and Jose shot down desperate men who stumbled through snow. The battle had become a massacre. The Indian rode along loosing arrows from the saddle. Men fell with feathered shafts jutting out of their backs. There was a man hanging off a horse, trying to pull himself up. Jose shot him off and Ted rode over him.
Bob rode right into the enemy camp and rode between the tents. A man stuck his head out of a tent and Bob killed him with a pistol shot. Then Bob turned around and rode back.
His horse was blown after the long charge. He didn’t want to push him any more so he walked him back across the plain towards the fleeing men.
Those men, running for their camp, looked up and saw Bob riding towards them. They saw a man on a big black horse that frothed at the mouth. He had a pistol in one hand and a Winchester in the other. He turned his horse side-on to them, less than fifty paces away and stared down at them. The lead man, carrying a Winchester, could have raised it and taken a shot. But Bob looked down at him, and the man turned and saw the other horsemen coming across the plain. He had stopped and all the men behind him were bunching up. The man tossed his Winchester aside and knelt down in the snow and all the men did the same. They laid themselves at the mercy of the man they had hunted. A man they called Murdering Bob Hughes.
