Reuben Cole Westerns Collection

Chapter 12

The memories returned, as vivid as if they were from yesterday. Cole listened intensely, all discomfort forgotten as Roose returned to that moment thirty years ago when they came upon a deserted homestead.

Roose took a wide berth, keeping the pace of his horse steady, using the long grass as partial cover from anyone who might be watching from the cabin. From a distance of around two to three hundred yards, he kept the settlement in plain view, stopping every so often to train his German-made precision field glasses on the cluster of buildings. He saw Cougan striding through the grass, rifle in hands. From twenty paces away, the big man had dismounted and now marched defiantly on, going straight through the open door of the cabin, paying no mind to the bundle behind the well. Intrigued, Roose once more focused in on what appeared to be a pile of clothes.

Until he saw the n***d arm.

He dropped the glasses from his grip and kicked his horse into a canter, cutting a wide swathe through the gentle swaying grass, stirred by a hot breeze blowing in across the fields.

A shout, more of a strangulated bark, and Cougan appeared in the cabin entrance, staggering like a drunkard, his hands empty, the rifle gone. Roose turned his horse and jumped down at the run, levering his carbine, dropping to his knees when within calling range and training the weapon on the door.

‘Cougan?’ He waited, either for his companion to move or say something. There was no discernable reaction, however, only the swaying from side to side. Cougan’s face, ashen-grey, seemed to have turned to stone, mouth and eyes wide open, but no life there. He was, Roose mused with chilling certainty, like a ghost. Already dead.

Something moved beyond the bulk of the inert Cougan. A shape, a man perhaps. Roose fired a single round into the blackness of the cabin, the large calibre bullet streaking over Cougan’s left shoulder. A muffled cry followed by silence.

‘Cougan?’ Roose hissed again. More urgent now, as he levered another round into the Spencer and c****d the hammer. He sucked in a breath and steadied himself. Waiting, always the hardest part when shooting, Roose listened out for any sound of movement from within.

There was nothing.

Keeping low, Cole approached the side of the cabin from the mountainside. He dropped to his belly some dozen paces or so and slithered forward. The bundle of clothing behind the well caught his eye and from this angle and distance, he could clearly see it was a body. A young woman, contorted in the unmistakable pose of death.

Cougan came out of the doorway and stood swaying like a willow. Cole rolled away, deciding to take the rear of the cabin. Reaching the corner, he got to his haunches and checked his Winchester. He was about to move when the boom of Roose’s carbine brought him up short and he waited, mouth open, straining to hear anything.

A low groan from inside the timber building. Definitely a man, possibly badly hurt.

Or possibly also a trick, to lure Roose indoors.

Taking a few urgent breaths, Cole chanced a look around the corner.

There was a man, kneeling in the stable doorway on the other side of the rear yard. Cole darted away again behind the cover of the cabin wall. He waited, eyes squeezed shut, recalling the man’s look. Long hair, blue shirt, buckskin pants. An Indian, possible Comanche or Kiowa. He chanced another look.

Beyond the yard fence, they were taking the horses away at a gallop. Perhaps half a dozen men, some doubled up on their own mounts, leading the roped together animals across the far fields, kicking up a lot of dust as there the grass was not in such lush condition. Perhaps the settlers, or farmers more like, had left it fallow for the following season. Cole clamped his mouth shut. They’d never be farming this land again.

He chanced another look towards the stable. There were two of them now and, as yet, they hadn"t spotted him, so he dipped back, flattened himself against the wall and bided his time. As soon as they broke cover, he too would move.

He had no way of knowing how many more renegades were lurking amongst the settlement. He’d estimated at least six of them making off with the retreating horses. Reports had said around a dozen Indians had broken free from the reservation, so somewhere milling around were a further six warriors. If Roose had hit one in the cabin, there were still five or so more to contend with.

Cole pressed the Winchester against his chest and measured his breathing. Comanche and Kiowas were just about the best for moving silently. They could already have made the rear entrance to the cabin.

So, sucking in a deep breath, he moved.

With no subsequent movement or sound emanating from inside the cabin, Roose decided to lower his carbine. Cougan continued to maintain his curious swaying motion, but Roose felt that almost certainly the man was dead. His big body leaned against the door frame, the only thing to prop him up. But it was the man’s missing rifle that worried Roose the most.

Head down, he broke cover and ran half-crouched to the well, throwing himself up against its curved wall. From this angle, he had perfect cover to protect himself from anyone in the cabin shooting at him. Not from the stable, however.

There were two men in the open doorway and they were running also.

As they ran, another man appeared in the stable entrance, covering them with a partially-drawn bow.

Roose threw himself to his left as the arrow hit the well wall and veered off in a skyward direction. They’d spotted him, cutting off his chance to move.

Waiting, imagining the Indian with the bow nocking another arrow, he sprang up from his position and put three rapid shots into the stable opening. The bullets slapped into the woodwork, sending up a shower of jagged splinters, but no cries, no blood. Swinging his Spencer again to the cabin he put a further three rounds inside. Spent, he threw the carbine down and drew his Colt Cavalry. Just then more firing opened up. It was close.

Cole sprang out from his cover, standing, legs apart, Winchester lined up as three shots rang out across the wide open area between the rear of the cabin and the stable door.

He saw them. Two warriors, hatchets in hand, quiet as an owl swooping for its prey.

Three more shots thundered into the cabin and Cole responded, pouring steady shots into the charging men. Each bullet struck home, hitting first one man, then the other, full in the chest, throwing them backwards and Cole put two more bullets into each of them, heads erupting in a fine spray of pink mist and white, shattered skull fragments.

A man came out of the stable, drawing a bow and Cole shot him, dropping him like a stone.

The silence descended, eerie, other-worldly and Cole stood and viewed it all, dispassionate, unmoved. He"d fought Comanche for many years. This was nothing new for him. He knew what these warriors were capable of, their ruthless aggression almost legendary. Even in death, they appeared terrifying.

Footsteps clumped around inside the cabin and Cole whirled, going to one knee, his revolver in his hand, the Winchester by his side empty.

The rear door to the cabin remained closed. A voice, one he knew, called from beyond it. ‘Cole? It’s me. Don’t shoot.’

The door eased open and Roose stood there, white as death. ‘It’s bad, Cole.’ He pushed his Colt its holster, angled for a cross-belly draw. ‘Very bad.’

Without a word, Cole scooped up the Winchester and pushed past his friend and into the cabin interior.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the change in light.

A large room, where once the family would have sat around the table, eating supper, sharing the laughter, the rigours of the working day. Ordinary conversations. Father, hard-working, wiry, strong. His two sons, gangly, not yet fully filled out. The wife. Plain, but determined. A daughter.

Cole knew all of this. He could see them.

The daughter was outside, next to the well. She must have broken free and run for her life. An arrow in the back.

Is that how it was?

He didn’t know about the girl, but he knew about the others.

The wife lay spread-eagled across the table. n***d, her body defiled, her mouth open in a soundless scream, features contorted in pain. After they’d had their fill of her, they’d opened her up like a ripe melon with a heavy-bladed Bowie, straight to the breastbone.

If they had witnessed it, the male members of the family could not have helped her. Both boys were hanging by the feet from the rafters. n***d, the blood running in thick black streams down their bodies to mingle with their matted hair.

Between them, propped against the cold fireplace, the father. They’d wrenched his arms sideways, and lashed his limbs to the mantle to make him appear like a bird of prey, hovering over the dead. They’d hacked off his hands and his feet leaving him to bleed out in a torment of horror, watching what his wife had to endure, unable to help.

‘What do we do?’

Cole turned to his friend. Something passed between them. A sadness, but also an acceptance. They had come too late to help these people and that was something that would stay with them forever.

‘We bury them,’ said Cole dispassionately, ‘then we burn this place to the ground.’

Roose cleared his throat, averting his eyes from the horrors around him. ‘And Cougan?’

Grunting, Cole went over to their companion. The knife still jutted from his back. It might have been the same knife they’d used on the woman. Cole put one hand flat against Cougan’s back and pulled out the broad blade, the flesh making a sucking sound in its desperate attempt to keep the cold metal inside. It came out with a sickening plop and Cole pushed Cougan forward and he toppled, like a great tree, and smacked into the ground, face down.

‘After we’ve buried ‘em, we hunt the others down.’ Cole turned and stared at his friend. ‘Alone. You and me. And when we catch ‘em, I’ll do to them what they did to these poor folk.’

Roose’s eyes came up and he knew that his friend spoke the truth.