Song of Eagles (17 page)

“I done killed Brewer. Maybe one or two more. I couldn't get no fair trial in this Territory.”

“It won't matter if you bleed to death, Buckshot. Toss out that rifle an' give yourself up.”

“The hell with you. I'm stayin'.”

“But you're liable to die,” Ryan begged, crouching down with his white truce flag between his knees.

“A man's gotta die sooner or later,” Roberts answered, his voice failing him due to weakness. “Let them Regulators come at me. I'll make 'em pay real dear.”

“You right sure you're mind's made up?” Ryan asked, backing up a low hill to the safety of a stand of pinon pines east of the Blazer home.

“I'm damn sure of it. Get the hell away from here,” was Roberts' reply.

* * *

Andrew “Buckshot” Roberts died before dawn the next morning, as Dr. Appel from the army post at Fort Stanton arrived. Dick Brewer was obviously dead. Frank Coe had a severe wound to his hand, requiring the amputation of his thumb and forefinger.

Dick Brewer and Andrew Roberts were buried side by side at Blazer's Mills the next day, two enemies who had never met.

And with the death of “Buckshot” Roberts came a new enemy for the Regulators: The United States Army from nearby Fort Stanton.

The Kid escaped without a scratch. However, more was to come his way before the Lincoln County War came to an end . . .

For four days Sheriff Peppin's posse had Alexander McSween's house in Lincoln surrounded. The Kid was growing edgy, as were many of the others. Almost twenty Regulators had been recruited, gathering at McSween's to execute the warrants for Jesse Evans, Sheriff Peppin, and several more. Shortly after the killing of Sheriff Brady, George Peppin was sworn in as sheriff and granted warrants for the arrest of the Regulators by powerful men close to the territorial governor. Both sides claimed to represent the law.

“Doc” Scurlock had been named captain of the Regulators after the killing of Dick Brewer, although everyone listened to McSween's counsel.

José Chavez, a new Regulator, was standing near a front window when he announced, “Here comes trouble.”

The Kid came to the window, peering out with his rifle in his hands.

More than fifty uniformed soldiers from Fort Stanton came riding and marching into Lincoln—a dozen cavalrymen and the rest infantrymen.

“Looks like the army's gonna take a hand in this,” the Kid said.

“They got no authority against us,” Scurlock said. “This is a civilian matter.”

McSween opened his front door a crack. “With or without the proper authority, it appears Colonel Dudley has decided to take sides with Sheriff Peppin and Jimmy Dolan.”

“They bring a howitzer cannon and a Gatling gun,” Chavez remarked, frowning.

“A cannon will blow these walls to pieces,” McSween said quietly.

“We'll shoot the first son of a bitch who tries to aim it at us,” Jim French said, almost fully recovered from his leg wound.

The Kid watched Colonel Dudley direct his men to move into the hills around McSween's adobe home. Some of Dolan's men went with the soldiers, breaking up into small groups to take up stations against the house.

“Look at that, boys. Men from the posse are hunkerin' down with the soldiers. Guess they think we'll be afraid to shoot at 'em if'n they're next to a blue belly.”

Jim French snorted. “Huh, then they got another think comin'. If them soldier boys didn't wanna get shot at, they shouldn't have come to Lincoln.”

“They've got us cornered now,” the Kid said. “We gotta keep 'em from cuttin' us off to the river. It may be our only way out.”

“They can't do this!” Scurlock insisted. “We have the legal authority and the warrants to arrest Peppin and every son of a bitch who was in that posse.”

The Kid recalled his conversation with Falcon MacCallister at the cabin. “My friend from up north, MacCallister, said the governor invalidated our warrants an' took away our authority as constables.”

“No one has informed me,” McSween said, watching Dudley's troops scatter, forming a semi-circle around his house. “The governor overstepped his bounds if he did something like that without good reason.”

“He's in Murphey an' Dolan's pockets,” Scurlock said with anger filling his voice. “Tom Catron up in Santa Fe is behind every bit of this.”

“We're gonna have to shoot our way out of here,” the Kid remarked.

“The Kid is right,” Chavez said.

Jim French was at another window. “Look yonder, boys. One of Peppin's men is tryin' to sneak up on this side where them trees are the thickest carryin' a torch. They aim to burn us out, looks like.”

“It's adobe,” Scurlock said.

McSween looked at the rafters above them. “But the roof is made of wood. It's dry as tinder. If they are able to set the roof ablaze, we'll have to come out or the smoke will surely kill us.”

The Kid looked over his shoulder at McSween. “And you got your wife and the other women and children in the east wing of the house to worry about. The way this wind's blowin', fire would catch 'em 'fore they could get quit of the house.”

Without waiting for instructions, French fired his rifle out the window.

“You got the bastard!” Chavez cried.

A deputy working for Sheriff Peppin lay writhing in the dirt with a burning torch lying beside him.

“Nice shot,” Scurlock said, grinning.

“It was a good shot,” the Kid agreed after he saw the wounded deputy.

Answering rifle fire came pouring from the hills around the adobe and from the fire tower of a nearby house where some Dolan sharpshooters were stationed, smashing glass windowpanes, thudding into adobe walls and the roof.

“Look!” Chavez exclaimed. “Three of them soldiers is tryin' to turn that cannon on us.”

“Shoot 'em down!” Scurlock snapped, raising his rifle to his shoulder.

The Regulators blasted away at the infantrymen around the howitzer. Two soldiers dropped to the ground while the other fled to cover.

Sue McSween, Alexander's wife, had refused to leave the house before the shooting started. She now pointed to a rear window and let out a scream.

“What is it?” McSween cried, rushing to the window to see what had upset his wife.

Another of Peppin's deputies stood near a low adobe wall running up to the back porch. The deputy threw an oil-soaked torch up on the roof and ducked down behind the wall.

“Fire!” McSween yelled. “They managed to throw a burning stick up on the roof.”

The Kid could see things taking a deadly turn. Instead of a standoff, the tide was turning toward Peppin's forces with the arrival of the soldiers.

“What time is it?” the Kid shouted at McSween.

McSween, a puzzled look on his face, pulled his pocket watch from his vest and opened the face. “It's a quarter to eight. Why?” he asked.

“ 'Cause it'll be full dusk 'bout eight o'clock. I say we need to make a run for the river out the back, 'fore that fire burns the place down around us.”

McSween sank to his knees, kneeling and leaning against the wall. It was plain that his courage was failing, and he was becoming more apathetic by the minute. He seemed almost in a state of emotional collapse.

The Kid realized someone needed to take charge or they would all die in this house.

“We can stick it out until dusk,” he told the others, “if the fire doesn't burn any faster than it is now. Some of us are certain to get hit, but most of us can make it across the river. It's only a few hundred yards, and if we run fast and shoot fast, we can hold off Peppin's crowd so they can't do us much damage.”

He turned to Mrs. McSween, regarding her with sympathy. “I expect, ma'am, you had better leave first. A dress ain't very good to make a run in.”

Mrs. McSween glanced over at her husband, cowering against a far wall, and agreed to leave early enough so that she wouldn't impede the others when the time to make their break came.

“I'll take a couple of volunteers with me, an' we'll run out first to draw the fire of Dolan's men and the soldiers.” He looked over and spoke to McSween. “That'll give you and the others a chance to slip out undetected and get to safety.”

Everyone in the room agreed, standing tall and proud and showing no fear, except Ignacio Gonzalez, who had taken to whimpering and crying since he had been wounded in the arm.

The Kid turned to him, his face red and flushed from anger. “You damn coward!” the Kid said contemptuously, “I've got a great mind to hit you over the head with my pistol. We are going to stick here until it's full dark. Brace up and behave like a man.”

Finally, dusk and darkness came to Lincoln. The Kid realized it was now or never.

“Let's make for the river now!” the Kid shouted, as more rifle fire came at them from the hills. “It's nearly dark out there.”

“They'll shoot us the minute we step outside,” McSween said, peering cautiously out a side window.

“We've gotta try it,” Scurlock said. “Otherwise we're gonna be burned alive in here.”

“I'll go out first,” volunteered the Kid. “The rest of you come behind me. We'll stay next to the wall and use it for cover as long as we can, until we can make a dash for the trees along the riverbank.”

“It's about the only choice we have,” McSween said as smoke from burning wood shingles began to fill the kitchen and some of the other rooms.

“I'll be right behind you,” Chavez said, leaving the window to hurry over to the back door.

Scurlock and more than a dozen others carried rifles over to stand behind the Kid and Chavez.

“Go whenever you're ready,” Chavez said, levering a shell into the firing chamber of his rifle.

“If we throw enough lead back at 'em, maybe they won't be so damn brave,” the Kid said, opening the door an inch or two to take a look outside.

“There may be some deputies hiding on the other side of the wall,” the Kid warned.

“We'll kill the bastards,” French snarled, coming up beside the Kid with his rifle cocked.

The Kid glanced over his shoulder. Alexander McSween sat on the floor, sobbing softly. He carried no guns, and seemed to be in the depths of despair.

“Follow us, Mr. McSween!” the Kid cried.

McSween merely wagged his head.

“C'mon, Kid,” French said, shoving past Chavez and the others to be first out the back door.

Next came Harvey Morris, then Tom O'Folliard, before José Chavez and the Kid made it out to the wall. Flames from the burning roof illuminated them as they crept toward the river, making them easy targets.

A commotion at the front of the house made the Kid stop in his tracks to look back inside the house, and what he saw made his blood run cold.

Three men rushed through the unguarded front door with guns leveled.

“Give up, McSween!” a deep voice shouted.

“I shall never surrender!” McSween yelled back.

Then guns began to explode.

Five bullets cut down McSween so quickly that he did not have time to shield his face with his hands.

The next to fall was a new Regulator making his escape through the back door, Vincente Romero. He flew off the porch after two shots caught him in the back.

Francisco Zamora wheeled around with his rifle to come to the aid of McSween. A slug caught him in the throat and he fell back on the seat of his pants, dropping his gun to grab his neck with both hands before he fell over dead.

Young Yginio Salazar crumpled with a bullet in the back fired by one of the posse. He began crawling toward the back door as smoke poured through holes burning in the roof, filling the house.

Ignàcio Gonzalez cradled his wounded arm as he came after the Kid and the other Regulators. He screamed in pain as another bullet grazed his side, but kept on running toward the wall, gripping his shattered arm, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Florencio Chavez dashed out the back, ducking down so low he made a difficult target. José Sanchez was right behind him, and they turned away from the river, racing toward a chicken house a few dozen yards behind McSween's. In a matter of seconds they were out of sight.

“Run!” French cried, leading the rest of the Regulators toward the river.

Suddenly, two shadows appeared in the trees along the riverbank. Henry Brown and George Coe were motioning them toward the thicket.

“Hurry!” George shouted as the shooting behind them grew louder.

“This way!” Henry added before ducking back behind the trunk of a cottonwood tree.

The Kid fired over his shoulder when a man raised up near the adobe wall. A man screamed and the figure dropped out of sight.

French and O'Folliard were the first to reach Coe and Brown while Chavez and the Kid covered everyone's escape from the rear with occasional gunshots.

“This way,” the Kid heard Coe say.

“Stay in them reeds an' keep down,” Brown added in a quiet voice.

“We got horses tied downstream,” Coe said as the Regulators trotted away from McSween's burning house.

“I saw 'em kill Mr. McSween,” the Kid said to Doc Scurlock as they came to the water's edge.

“Damn,” Scurlock hissed. “McSween never even carried no kind of gun.”

“We'll get the yellow bastards another time,” the Kid promised as they ran among tall canes growing along the bank. “They murdered Mr. McSween just like they murdered Mr. Tunstall that time.”

“Damn right,” Scurlock said, trotting through deep shadows, his mouth in a grim line. “We'll get revenge on 'em. Just you wait an' see.”

“I'll be right there to lend a hand,” the Kid said after a glance over his shoulder to see if any of the posse were following them. Flames from the roof of the house licked high in the night sky.

“The shootin' stopped,” French said, slowing until the Kid and Scurlock were beside him.

“I reckon they killed all the others,” Scurlock said bitterly.

The Kid couldn't shake the memory of Alexander McSween, sitting unarmed on the floor of his burning house when bullets tore through his body.

He remained silent about it now, but as they neared a group of saddled horses in a cottonwood grove downriver the Kid swore revenge against the killers of McSween. Their day of reckoning would come soon enough . . .