Massacre at Whip Station Read online

  “You’re not going to make it there,” Clarity said.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Listen.”

  It took Joe’s older ears a few moments to catch up to what the woman had heard. Hoofbeats, coming fast. At least two riders, maybe more.

  “There!” Clarity said suddenly, pointing ahead in the moonlight.

  Coming from the eastern leg of the road were three men, black ghosts against a pale plain.

  They weren’t the men Joe had been expecting.

  They were the ones he had been fearing.

  CHAPTER 8

  Reverend Michaels had been sitting with the sleeping Dick Ocean, prayerfully reading from the O’Malley family Bible, when he heard the detonation. He leaped from the bedside so suddenly that Ocean woke from his liquor-aided rest.

  “I’m hit!” he cried, rising from a dream.

  The preacher remembered himself and turned to the wounded man. He rested a soft, practiced, comforting hand on the man’s bare shoulder.

  “You’re safe,” he consoled the shotgun rider. “You’re fine.”

  Ocean eased swiftly back into sleep. Michaels, however, was not fine and returned to his newly agitated state. He hurried on quiet feet to the main room.

  Michaels was a fussy man under normal circumstances. Back in Kentucky, he worried about his appearance whenever he walked among his parishioners. He carefully inspected utensils for cleanliness, drinking water for bugs and particles, his fingernails for dirt.

  During the ride on the stagecoach, many of those concerns were not discarded. They were simply transferred, like a detailed letter from home, to something else. In this case, it was vengeful Roche family members or friends. He worried that they were already pursuing Clarity on the next stage or on horseback with a posse.

  Now he fretted about what might have happened to her in the field. Hearing the explosion, he went out to the main room where he found Jackson and B.W. just returning to the station.

  “Do you think my sister is all right?” he asked with a catch in his voice.

  The parson’s question was as heartfelt as it was impossible to answer.

  “She’s with my pa,” Jackson replied. “I’m still trying to—”

  “And he’s with her,” B.W. interrupted. “Together out there it’s like it says in Proverbs, ‘Iron sharpeneth iron.’”

  Michaels was not at the moment consoled even by the Word itself.

  “But even they might not be able to protect one another from—What was that?” Michaels asked.

  “I was about to say I don’t know,” Jackson went on.

  “Powder, most likely,” B.W. replied. “Like for blasting mines, which they used to have a lot of out here.”

  “And the gunshots?” the preacher said. “Those were shots, yes?”

  “Sounded like ’em,” Jackson replied. “And just as likely they came from Pa or Clarity. If something happened to them in that blast, no one woulda been firing at them.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Michaels said without calming.

  Jackson walked over to him not to coddle but to rouse.

  “Look, shooting all around the target don’t help us,” Jackson said. “Our job, right now, is to put you folks on the stage, get it rolling, and keep the station secure. My boy is watching the north end and I’ll hear anyone riding from the south. Now, the horses are hitched and it’s time to get the rest of you moving.”

  “Right now, we’re frogs in a small pond,” B.W. added. “Gotta break it up, mebbe divide the enemy.”

  “I see,” Michaels said. “Of course.”

  “I’ll pick up Slash on the way out,” B.W. told Jackson. “Have him watch the road ahead till the last instant.”

  “I’ll need just a minute to finish packing your supplies,” Sarah said to the Whip.

  The woman had pulled a canvas bag from its pegboard in the kitchen. She was filling it with clothes, tobacco, and jerky. She also took his water skin from where it hung near the back door. Gert had already filled it with well water. The mistress of Whip Station hefted it, looking for punctures it might have suffered during the gunfight. There were none.

  Jackson turned back to the front door. “Malibu?”

  The Indian came over.

  “Would you relieve Slash out back when the stage pulls out?” he asked. “We’ll need eyes there.”

  “Yes,” Malibu replied.

  Sisquoc had already gone out front to keep watch at the entrance. The two veteran plainsmen had joined the cavalry in 1858, when they were in their late twenties and wanting a more secure life for their widowed mothers and new wives. All four women lived together in a hut the Indians owned outside of Fort Mason.

  It was unlikely that any living thing could approach the station without being seen or heard.

  When the Indian had gone, Fletcher Small rose once more from the table, slapping his hands on the surface to signify that he was finished here and ready to depart. He had been eating bread from Clarity’s plate, watching the preparations with keen attention, making notes—especially of what was said.

  “This is more of a story than I could have dreamed of,” he enthused. No one had been waiting for his assessment and no one stopped what they were doing to acknowledge it. That did not deter him from continuing. “It’s like something out of Beadle’s Dime Novels—but real. Real.”

  “You have published with them?” Gert asked.

  “Three times,” he answered proudly.

  “Under your name?”

  “One must not mix flame and kindling,” he replied. “My journalistic name must be pure.” He shook his head. “Even so, the truth is not always entirely credible. I wonder if anyone will even believe it.”

  “I wonder if you’ll live to write it,” Gert said as she began clearing the table. That was more than just housekeeping; it was tactical. In an attack, turned on its side, the heavy oak table afforded protection from gunfire and arrows. Metal plates, cups, forks, and knives could cause you to slip in the dark.

  The preacher turned at her pronouncement. “Do you really think we’re in jeopardy? Should we be staying here?”

  “Anyone who comes west is in danger,” Small observed.

  “You are in no more danger here than back east,” Gert said, “where there are fires and riots and industrial smoke in your lungs.”

  “I’ve covered riots,” Small noted. He added provocatively, “Cowards and anarchists mostly.”

  “Let’s pay attention to what we’re doing,” Jackson cautioned.

  Gert leaned near the reporter who snickered as he walked by. “And they say the Indians are uneducated,” she said very quietly.

  “I’ve never uttered a sentiment like that,” he replied without looking at her. “Not in a story, anyway.”

  Jackson and B.W. went out to the well to fill the rest of the water pouches. The stagecoach carried one for every two people. Though they refilled at every stop, passengers often carried their own in case of mishap. Butterfield was not required to provide more than two cups of water for each person between stops while in transit.

  After swapping places with Malibu, Slash returned to the station to begin arming himself for the journey. He worked silently, like the kind of man his mother was not accustomed to seeing in her boy. In addition to a full deerskin, he would need extra ammunition for his carbine and Remington revolver. He wore the gun on his left side for a cross-handed draw. In addition to the sheathed Bowie knife on his right hip, he strapped a long-blade Green River knife to the inside of his left thigh. His grandfather had carried the knife for years and there were times that called for two-fisted knife fighting. That was the kind of blade Slash liked best, especially against a bear or a renegade Indian.

  “You want my rabbit skin?” Gert asked her brother.

  Sarah was standing nearby. “Why would he want that musty old thing?”

  “For luck.” Gert grinned.

  “I think I’ll be okay,” her brother replied.r />
  B.W. put the water pouches on the hooks inside the coach and outside the driver’s box. The cool night wind was picking up and he left the windows down. The passengers could argue among one another whether stuffy heat or invasive dust was more troublesome. They usually reached a compromise: windows open, curtains drawn.

  The driver returned to the station, stood before the two men from the East.

  “Reverend, Mr. Small—if the two of you would board?”

  The men did not hesitate, the preacher propelled by nervous energy, the reporter with the eagerness of a reader wanting to see how a tale ended up. As they left, B.W. went over to the shaman. The Serrano had settled his big form in a rocking chair, which he seemed to enjoy.

  “We’ll be leaving now, Your Eminence,” B.W. said with deference. It was the first time he had addressed the man and wasn’t sure what else to call him or how to say it.

  Tuchahu nodded once. He used his moccasins to halt the movement of the chair. Then, with his hands firmly gripping the arm rests—as though the chair had a spirit of its own, one whose hands he was shaking—he pushed off the seat and stood. He looked at Sarah and smiled.

  “Thank . . . you,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  “I’m glad you liked it.” She smiled back. “It is my Mr. O’Malley’s favorite chair as well.”

  Retrieving his headdress from the small wooden table beside the seat, the Indian bowed slightly to all of his hosts and then preceded B.W. out the door.

  The two joined the others by the stagecoach. B.W. opened the door.

  “I cannot say I will mind the added leg room,” Small remarked as he climbed in.

  “Or the night air,” the priest said, foreshadowing a debate as he followed him in.

  The shaman was the last to enter, sitting across from the two men, in the center. He was facing the front of the coach.

  B.W. shut the door behind him and exhaled. Slash approached from the station, looking every inch a picture-book knight with wood and metal projections from weapons along his sides and under his armpits.

  “You ever had a situation like this?” Slash asked as they climbed into the driver’s box.

  “Never like this,” he answered. “Run from Injuns a couple times. Once they wanted our horses but Dick chased ’em off. Second occasion they was just having fun, I think—young braves, probably out to prove themselves. Both times, the Red Man’s blood was shed.”

  “Day or night?” Slash asked.

  “The youngsters came at night,” B.W. replied as he climbed aboard. “Their appaloosas actually ran one into t’other in the darkness. Just glad o’ one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We got a split spoke,” he said. “Less weight on it, the better.”

  Slash looked toward the rear of the stagecoach. He had considered riding in the back, covering their rear. He dismissed the idea because he would be a penned bull there, among the luggage and letters—one shot and they’d know where to shoot back.

  Slash adjusted his knives so they weren’t sticking straight down. He made sure his guns and rifles were in ready reach.

  “We have a battle plan when we move out?” the young man asked.

  “Prayer is good,” B.W. replied.

  “I’m saving all I got for my grandpa,” Slash said, looking out at the black eastern sky. There appeared to be a haze across it, most likely dust, not mist. “I’m still worried about whatever happened out there.”

  “Gonna need your full attention here,” B.W. reminded him.

  “It’s yours,” Slash assured him.

  B.W. nodded and took up the reins. He saw Jackson and his wife watching from the door and he threw them a grateful salute. Maybe they, too, were sending prayers eastward.

  Then, with a chucking sound deep in his full, grizzled cheek, the Whip urged the team toward the entrance.

  * * *

  Nearly two miles away, though washed by the same caressing wind, Joe O’Malley and Clarity Michaels were lying on their bellies. Joe had moved the horse behind a boulder and joined the woman who was watching the riders over the carbine. He was to her right and had his right hand full of Colt, lying flat beside his head.

  “They’re not white men,” Joe said in a voice barely a whisper. “Looks like they got blankets, not saddles—and they’re riding forward, holding reins or manes. Can’t be sure.”

  “Hostiles?” Clarity asked in the same barely audible tone.

  “Likely Apache this time of day, so likely yes,” Joe responded.

  “Will they see us?”

  “Apaches? They can probably see us, smell us, and hear what we’re saying. It’s not just from living in the wild for generations. All their animal spirits help them.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe that?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They do. Now don’t do anything unless I say. Don’t even move if they come running at us. That’ll be to see what we’re made of.”

  Clarity reflected for a moment, then asked, “What are we made of?”

  “Faith and patience,” he replied. “They run us over, they fall. They know it and now you do. Tumble like that can kill a man.”

  “Won’t benefit me much, either,” she noted.

  Despite the urgency in the moment, Joe smiled. He liked this woman very much. Cool in the face of peril the way his Dolley used to be.

  “I was wrong to oppose your being out here,” he admitted.

  “If that’s the last thing I hear, I’m grateful,” she answered.

  “It won’t be if you hush now,” he said as the Indians neared.

  Joe and Clarity fell silent as they could not only see the horses and riders but could feel their approach. The ground rumbled under their bellies, and Joe had an odd memory just then of Dolley once telling little Jackson that thunder came when God spanked the clouds for being dark and brooding. If that was true, who would she have said sent the rumbling of the Apaches?

  He smiled again—with likely hostile Indians not twenty, thirty yards distant.

  Suddenly, Joe heard a shout in Apache and the three riders pulled hard to a stop. Maybe they smelled the two or heard them, but it was the moonlight must have given away their location. Joe lay a reassuring, cautioning hand on Clarity’s arm.

  “They spotted us,” Joe said. “I’m gonna stand.”

  “I’m going to cover you,” she replied firmly.

  Joe was feeling his age a little when he got to his feet after lying flat. He had wrenched around more than he realized back at the gulch. His body, however, had kept track of every twist and start.

  He holstered his revolver slowly, exaggerating the action so the Indians could see. Then he held up both hands as he stood. Joe did not know these men, whose faces were in shadow. He had not expected to. If they came here at all, it was to hunt or harass the stagecoach. Maybe Slash knew them or had seen them, but Joe did not have much to do with any Apaches. Not since his days as a scout and hunter.

  These men were dressed in deerskin, no war paint, which was a good sign.

  Only one of them carried a bow and quiver. The others had rifles. All carried small pouches that would contain necessities like flint for a fire and dried strips of rabbit or elk, perhaps nuts. They might have been headed for a powwow with another tribe or on a hunting expedition for nocturnal beasts.

  “Da’anzho,” Joe said, using one of the few words he knew in Western Apache—“Hello.”

  After a moment, the Indian in the center moved his feisty animal forward several steps. The other Indians stayed where they were. The brave ignored the woman.

  “Hello,” the Apache said in deep-throated English. He gestured past Joe, toward the gulch. “You?”

  “Not me,” Joe replied. “A Rebel. He tried to kill us.”

  “Maybe same who attack settlement?”

  “I’m sorry?” Joe said.

  “We hunt—men in masks come, take weapons, leave,” the Indian said. “We search.”

  �
��Could be the same men,” Joe said. “I don’t know why they’d be looking to rob you, though. Maybe same as Apache who go to settlers’ homes, take food and livestock.”

  “This our land, those belong to us,” the Apache replied.

  “Maybe these Rebels don’t agree with that thinking,” Joe suggested.

  “Rebel war over,” the Apache replied with a horizontal sweep of one arm.

  “That’s another story,” Joe said. “War not over for some Rebels. They tried to kidnap shaman.”

  “Kid-nap?”

  “Take. Steal,” Joe said, closing his fist.

  “Who shaman?”

  “Serrano. Name Tuchahu.”

  “Serrano,” the Apache snorted. He thumped his chest. “All medicine . . . no man.”

  It wasn’t bad for an Indian attempt at humor.

  Joe shrugged. “Rebels attacked stage to take Tuchahu. Two Indian agents help them. My job—protect.”

  “We see your camp, we know your job,” the Indian said with a trace of annoyance. Within this man’s living memory, there had been no stagecoach, no stations. “I see boy.” He made a cutting gesture in both directions, diagonally. “Yours?”

  “Grandson,” Joe explained. “Slash is his name.”

  “Slash,” the Indian repeated. He pointed. “You?”

  “My name is Joe.”

  The Indian touched his chest again. “My name Baishan. Mean knife.”

  “You are knife, my grandson’s name means ‘cutting with knife.’” Joe linked his hands before his chest. “Maybe you and Slash meet.”

  “I win.”

  Joe shook his head. “Not to fight. As friends.”

  The Indian swept that idea away with a sideward movement of his hand across his chest. Turning on the back of the horse, he faced his companions. By showing Joe his back, he was signaling that he trusted the man. He still ignored the woman—and her leveled carbine.

  The Indian conferred quietly with the two Apaches. Joe did not catch any of it. After a moment, Baishan turned back.

  “Where Rebels?” the Apache asked.

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “We lost a horse. We lost time. We came here to find trail.”

  The Apache dismounted, rolled his shoulders to establish his ownership of the ground where he was about to tread. Joe knew that gesture well enough from the days when he insisted on taking a trail that passed through Indian hunting grounds.