I was just about asleep. Rooster nudged me and said, “I say one of them marshals was Potter.”
“What?”
“One of them two marshals at Fort Reno was Potter.”
“It was your friend from the war? The same one?”
“Yes, it was Columbus Potter in the flesh. I was glad to see him. He didn’t let on he knowed me. He told Hutchens he would take me in charge and see I was prosecuted. Hutchens said he would come back by Fort Smith when his business was done in Kansas and appear against me. Potter told him his statement right there was good enough to convict me of assault. Hutchens said he never heard of a court where they didn’t need witnesses. Potter said they had found it saved time. We come on over to Fort Smith and Potter got me commissioned as deputy marshal. Jo Shelby had vouched for him to the chief marshal and got him the job. General Shelby is in the railroad business up in Missouri now and he knows all these Republicans. He wrote a handsome letter for me too. Well, there is no beat of a good friend. Potter was a trump.”
“Do you like being a marshal?”
“I believe I like it better than anything I done since the war. Anything beats droving. Nothing I like to do pays well.”
“I don’t think Chaney is going to show up.”
“We will get him.”
“I hope we get him tonight.”
“You told me you loved coon hunting.”
“I didn’t expect it would be easy. I still hope we get him tonight and have it done with.”
Rooster talked all night. I would doze off and wake up and he would still be talking. Some of his stories had too many people in them and were hard to follow but they helped to pass the hours and took my mind off the cold. I did not give credence to everything he said. He said he knew a woman in Sedalia, Missouri, who had stepped on a needle as a girl and nine years later the needle worked out of the thigh of her third child. He said it puzzled the doctors.
I was asleep when the bandits arrived. Rooster shook me awake and said, “Here they come.” I gave a start and turned over on my stomach so I could peer over the log. It was false dawn and you could see broad shapes and outlines but you could not make out details. The riders were strung out and they were laughing and talking amongst themselves. I counted them. Six! Six armed men against two! They exercised no caution at all and my thought was: Rooster’s plan is working fine. But when they were about fifty yards from the dugout they stopped. The fire inside the dugout had gone down but there was still a little string of smoke coming from the mud chimney.
Rooster whispered to me, “Do you see your man?”
I said, “I cannot see their faces.”
He said, “That little one without the hat is Ned Pepper. He has lost his hat. He is riding foremost.”
“What are they doing?”
“Looking about. Keep your head down.”
Lucky Ned Pepper appeared to be wearing white trousers but I learned later that these were sheepskin “chaps.” One of the bandits made a sound like a turkey gobbling. He waited and gobbled again and then another time, but of course there was no reply from the vacant dugout. Two of the bandits then rode up to the dugout and dismounted. One of them called out several times for Quincy. Rooster said, “That is Haze.” The two men then entered the cabin with their arms ready. In a minute or so they came out and searched around outside. The man Haze called out repeatedly for Quincy and once he whooped like a man calling hogs. Then he called back to the bandits who had remained mounted, saying, “The horses are here. It looks like Moon and Quincy have stepped out.”
“Stepped out where?” inquired the bandit chieftain, Lucky Ned Pepper.
“I can make nothing from the sign,” said the man Haze. “There is six horses in there. There is a pot of sofky in the fireplace but the fire is down. It beats me. Maybe they are out tracking game in the snow.”
Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Quincy would not leave a warm fire to go track a rabbit at night. That is no answer at all.”
Haze said, “The snow is all stirred up out here in front. Come and see what you make of it, Ned.”
The man that was with Haze said, “What difference does it make? Let us change horses and get on out of here. We can get something to eat at Ma’s place.”
Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Let me think a minute.”
The man that was with Haze said, “We are wasting time that is better spent riding. We have lost enough time in this snow and left a broad track as well.”
When the man spoke the second time Rooster identified him as a Mexican gambler from Fort Worth, Texas, who called himself The Original Greaser Bob. He did not talk the Mexican language, though I suppose he knew it. I looked hard at the mounted bandits but mere effort was not enough to pierce the shadows and make out faces. Nor could I tell much from their physical attitudes as they were wearing heavy coats and big hats and their horses were ever milling about. I did not recognize Papa’s horse, Judy.
Lucky Ned Pepper pulled one of his revolvers and fired it rapidly three times in the air. The noise rumbled in the hollow and there followed an expectant silence.
In a moment there came a loud report from the opposite ridge and Lucky Ned Pepper’s horse was felled as though from a poleax. Then more shots from the ridge and the bandits were seized with panic and confusion. It was LaBoeuf over there firing his heavy rifle as fast as he could load it.
Rooster cursed and rose to his feet and commenced firing and pumping his Winchester repeating rifle. He shot Haze and The Original Greaser before they could mount their horses. Haze was killed where he stood. The hot cartridge cases from Rooster’s rifle fell on my hand and I jerked it away. When he turned to direct his fire on the other bandits, The Original Greaser, who was only wounded, got to his feet and caught his horse and rode out behind the others. He was clinging to the far side of his horse with one leg thrown over for support. If you had not followed the entire “stunt” from start to finish as I had done, you would have thought the horse was riderless. That is how he escaped Rooster’s attention. I was “mesmerized” and proved to be of no help.
Now I will back up and tell of the others. Lucky Ned Pepper was bowled over with his horse but he quickly crawled from under the dead beast and cut his saddle wallets free with a knife. The other three bandits had already spurred their horses away from the deadly cockpit, as I may call it, and they were firing their rifles and revolvers at LaBoeuf on the run. Rooster and I were behind them and a good deal farther away from them than LaBoeuf. As far as I know, not a shot was fired at us.
Lucky Ned Pepper shouted after the riders and pursued them on foot in a zigzag manner. He carried the saddle wallets over one arm and a revolver in the other hand. Rooster could not hit him. The bandit was well named “Lucky,” and his luck was not through running yet. In all the booming and smoke and confusion, one of his men chanced to hear his cries and he wheeled his horse about and made a dash back to pick up his boss. Just as the man reached Lucky Ned Pepper and leaned over to extend a hand to help him aboard he was knocked clean from the saddle by a well-placed shot from LaBoeuf’s powerful rifle. Lucky Ned Pepper expertly swung aboard in the man’s place without so much as a word or a parting glance at the fallen friend who had dared to come back and save him. He rode low and the trick-riding Mexican gambler followed him out and they were gone. The scrap did not last as long as it has taken me to describe it.