The Vigilance Man Read online

  Before Cutler was able to reply, one of the men by the store shouted to them, ‘We going after those wagons or what?’

  ‘Are you with us, Mr Cutler?’ asked Seaton. ‘Leastways for now?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I work for the District Attorney and maintaining the law is my job.’

  ‘Then let’s see what’s going on.’

  The body of vigilantes moved off at a brisk pace in the direction that the wagons had taken.

  The rain, which was now pouring down in a veritable torrent, had proved the ruination of Juarez’s scheme. The fires were going out and the town was boiling over like a disturbed ant hill. If the comancheros didn’t make tracks, and that right soon, they were likely to meet the wrath of several hundred angry men. When he heard the wagons coming towards where he and the others were waiting, Juarez said, ‘You men who’re riding the carts, jump up. The rest of you, take horse and we’ll be away.’

  ‘There’s a bunch of men heading behind them,’ observed the man at Juarez’ side. ‘There’ll be killing yet, before we’re clear of here.’

  ‘So be it.’

  As the wagons approached, those driving them reined in and applied the brakes, which, with a screeching of iron on iron, brought them slowly to a halt. The pursuing men were fifty yards behind and some of them gave shouts of triumph when they saw that the gap separating them from their quarry was fast shrinking. Their pleasure was short-lived though, because a second later they were scattering for cover as a fusillade of fire was sent down the road at them.

  Brent Cutler, who was new to this game, was slow off the mark in understanding what the smart move would be, so Seaton grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him over to the boardwalk. Seaton said, ‘Lawing in an office is one thing. When shooting starts, it’s something else again.’

  ‘Isn’t that the truth!’ muttered Cutler.

  Some of the vigilance men had brought rifles along with them; all had pistols. They began to pour a hail of lead at those who had just opened up on them. The problem was that it was now pitch-dark and a thunderstorm was raging into the bargain. The sound of the shooting was almost drowned by the thunder, which, from the sound of it, gave reason to suppose the storm was now directly overhead. It promised to be a lively and entertaining night – for those fortunate enough to survive it.

  CHAPTER 10

  The vigilance men were crouched in the shelter of the store fronts and standing in the spaces between the buildings. They had no intention of making a frontal assault on whoever had been shooting at them, but then again, those people in turn were pretty well pinned down by fire and would not be in any hurry to offer their backs as targets to the men who were so intent on catching up with them. The firing had died down a little and was sporadic now, but this was only because both parties were just waiting for a chance to get a clear shot at their opponents.

  Brent Cutler had been mulling things over in his mind and a terrible fear was beginning to grip him that he had played some part in precipitating this bloody crisis. Could it really be purely a coincidence that he and Archie had destroyed some wagons a matter of hours ago and that now somebody was making off out of town with a couple of other wagons? It was while he was musing in this way that he felt a grip on his arm from behind and turned to find Archie standing there. ‘That was a damn’ fool piece of work,’ said the old man, ‘jumpin’ in front a wagon like that!’

  Archie saw who Cutler’s companion was and nodded to him. ‘Evenin’, Seaton.’

  ‘Oh, good evening, Mr Carmichael. I hope you’re well?’ A stray bullet whined down the street, passing only a yard or two from them.

  Archie said, ‘Let’s save the polite society talk for some other time, hey? I suppose this young fellow’s told you what’s afoot?’

  ‘I don’t mind that he has.’

  ‘Me and him cleaned out a nest of comancheros, just lately. Burned their wagons. Happen they’ve come here for replacements.’

  Seaton’s eyes became sharp and he said, ‘Comancheros? Where was this? Come on, out with it man.’

  ‘Don’t try and buffalo me, Mark Seaton,’ said Archie. ‘You know well enough it won’t answer. T’was up in the foot hills, nigh to the High Peaks.’

  While they were talking, the shooting was slackening off even more and some of the nearby men were talking of making a rush and seeing if they could overwhelm those who had been firing at them. Seaton broke off from his conversation with Archie to say, ‘Nobody move forward, not without my saying so. Slow and steady does it. Anybody injured?’ It appeared that one man had a flesh wound in his arm, but that was the full tally.

  ‘What do you think they were about with their carts, Carmichael?’ asked the head of the vigilance men. ‘Transporting goods south?’

  ‘Most probable.’

  ‘You can show us where they were based?’

  ‘Course I can. I ain’t an idiot yet!’

  Seaton said to the men around him, ‘Cease fire! Let them go.’

  ‘You say what?’ cried one of the men. ‘After what they done? You goin’ soft or what?’

  ‘Carry on talking so to me and you’ll see who’s gone soft, Bill Cartwright,’ said Seaton in a low, deadly voice. ‘Let me catch the man who dares to think or say that I’m going soft.’

  There was an awkward silence, broken only by the man who had been foolish enough to use the word ‘soft’, mumbling that he didn’t mean nothing and hoped he’d caused no offence to nobody.

  ‘I’ll tell you why we’re going to let them go,’ explained Seaton patiently. ‘Those men are going to be restricted to the pace of those prairie schooners. We can give them half an hour and still overtake them on our horses in a few hours. If there’s to be a battle, it’ll be on our terms, not theirs. Why don’t you men wait ’til those boys have stopped shooting entirely and then go and fetch your horses? And all of you, get rifles too. I aim to get those men without hazarding a hair on any of your heads.’

  After telling them to be back there as soon as they might, Seaton said to Archie, ‘If I know you, you’ll be coming with us?’

  ‘Try and stop me!’

  Turning to Cutler, Mark Seaton said, ‘You and I have a heap of business to attend to, Mr Cutler, both official and personal. That will keep. Will you ride with me this night or would you rather wait here for us?’

  ‘I’ll come with you, sir.’

  ‘Good man. You both have horses?’

  It was almost three quarters of an hour later, before everybody was assembled and ready to go. The seventeen riders left town at a steady trot. Some of their wives had turned out to watch them leave and there was fear in their eyes. There had been no shooting in Greenhaven itself for years and nothing even remotely like the gun battle seen that night since the War Between the States. Some of the women looked reproachfully towards Mark Seaton, as though to say, ‘We thought you promised to keep this kind of thing from our town!’ This at any rate was how Seaton himself interpreted their looks.

  The rain showed no sign of letting up and the men were all wearing slickers and broad-brimmed hats. Archie and Cutler had no protection of this sort and it looked as though they were in for a cold, wet night.

  One of the band of vigilantes was sweating, despite the cold and rain. This was Jack Carlton, who guessed that the men who had raided the town that night were the very same men with whom he had lately been trading. If that came to light, the Lord only knew what would become of him. He determined that he would just have to do his level best to ensure that either none of the comancheros caught sight of his face or, if they did, that they didn’t live too long afterwards.

  ‘You scared?’ asked Archie, as they left the town behind.

  ‘No,’ said Cutler thoughtfully, ‘I wouldn’t say I’m precisely scared. Nervous, maybe.’

  ‘That’s good. Means you’re more apt to stay alive. Nervous men keep their eyes open for danger and are ready to run if need be. It’s the men who aren’t scared or nervous that you have to watch. Man in
that condition’ll do all manner of crazy things. I never saw anything in my life to beat you pushing Seaton clear o’ that wagon. Brave? I should say so.’

  ‘Thanks. What are we going to do, would you say?’

  ‘I reckon as that’s up to Seaton. He’s in charge. I’d be surprised, though, if any of those boys as was fire-raising last night are still breathing come the dawn.’

  ‘You think we’ll beat them in a fight?’

  ‘There’s some tough men here. Tough’uns among them comancheros too, of course. Not as cold and steady as the men from town, mind. Probably not as good shots, neither.’

  It wasn’t long before the shadowy forms of the wagons and their accompanying riders could be vaguely discerned through the driving rain. Every so often, there was a break in the clouds and the moon shone down upon the plain, which lay between the town of Greenhaven and the foot hills of the High Peaks. The lumbering wagons slowed the comancheros down until the vigilance men were able to outflank them and ride along at either side; about a quarter mile off from the men they were following. From time to time, one of the comancheros would loose off a shot in their direction, to discourage closer pursuit, but at that range and in those conditions, there was little enough danger of them hitting anybody.

  By the time the rain was easing off and it was closer to dawn than to dusk, the hills towards which they were heading came into clearer view. Behind them were the towering range known as the High Peaks. Mark Seaton dropped back and then rode alongside Archie. He said, ‘Is this where you attacked their camp?’

  ‘Not far from here. You can see the track leading up between those two hills.’

  ‘Why do you think they were so keen to get hold of carts? Did you see a lot of gear that they might have been moving from one place to the other? I mean things like crates of rifles. That sort of thing.’

  Archie thought about this for a space and then said, ‘Now that you mention it, no. I didn’t see more than bits and pieces. Not enough for them to need three wagons, no. Why d’you ask?’

  ‘I know those rascals. I’ve hanged a few of them before now. They need those wagons, or they wouldn’t have taken such a mad risk coming to town to steal them. I know what they’re about.’

  ‘Goin’ to share it with us?’ asked Archie, a note of irritation in his voice.

  ‘You know as well as I do, Carmichael. They’re white slavers. We’re much to blame for this, me and the other vigilance men. Not just here but also over in Fort James. All over. Turning a blind eye to wickedness, as long as it’s not on our very doorstep. I’ll warrant they’ve got some girls near at hand and they’re taking them to Mexico.’

  ‘Are you going to stop them, Mr Seaton?’ asked Cutler.

  ‘I’m going to hang them,’ said Seaton grimly, ‘but we’ll need to take them before they get into those hills. I don’t fancy fighting on that territory. They know it better than me.’

  ‘We’d best bring ’em to heel, then,’ remarked Archie. ‘Another half hour and we’ll be at the hills.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  Seaton rode off and gave instructions to the eight men on their side of the wagons and riders. He hoped that the others, who were half a mile away, would catch the idea when he began the attack. He rode back to Archie and Cutler and said, ‘We’re going to block their way to the track into the hills. Think you can get those beasts of yours to canter a little?’

  ‘We’ll have to see.’

  It had dawned on Juarez some time earlier that this was no longer a question of whether they were able to turn a profit on the girls, but rather if he and the others would still be alive when the sun rose. That being so, it made no sense at all to hang on to the wagons, which made rapid manoeuvres difficult and swift progress impossible. As Seaton was preparing to block the way into the hills, Juarez was riding up to the men in the wagons. He said, ‘It’s every man for himself. Forget the cargo; we’re saving our skins. How quickly can you men cut the traces and tack up your mounts?’

  The reply was to the effect that, given the circumstances, this could be accomplished with great speed.

  It was, of course, impossible to cut the traces of the wagons and saddle up the horses without bringing everything to a complete halt. Those in the wagons were profoundly uneasy about this procedure, tormented by the idea that as they were fooling around trying to tack up four horses in the dark, their comrades would ride off and desert them. Under other conditions, this fear might have been a realistic one; none of the comancheros had very finely developed senses of loyalty, compassion, generosity and altruism. Had they been well endowed with such qualities, they would most likely not have taken up as slavers in the first place. In the present instance, though, it was in everybody’s interest to stick together rather than separate into two groups. There was more safety in numbers.

  ‘Well,’ said Archie to the young man at his side, ‘I should say that the knife is about to meet the bone.’ The vigilantes had drawn themselves into a long straggling line. As Seaton had hoped, those far away had caught his plan at once and executed a pincer movement, helping to block the way forward for the comancheros. The only way that those men were going to reach the hills now was by fighting their way through a picket line of extremely tough and experienced men.

  Seaton’s intention was simple and deadly. He had his men dismount and cock their pieces. There were now better than a dozen men with rifles aimed, steady and sure, at the riders who would force their way past them. It would be a massacre if the comancheros carried on down their present path. When riders with pistols face men on the ground with rifles, the outcome is unlikely to favour the men on horseback. However, those riders were desperate now and knew that if they threw down their guns at this point, they would be hanged out of hand. Faced with the Hobson’s choice of death by powder and lead or at the end of a rope, they chose to go down fighting. Fifteen riders, firing their pistols wildly as they came on, rode down at a canter on the line of vigilantes.

  It was sheer slaughter. Anybody who has ever tried to fire a forty-five revolver with one hand, while controlling a speeding horse with the other, will know that any sort of accurate marksmanship is quite impossible. Seaton and his vigilance men picked off the riders one by one, calmly taking aim and knocking them down as methodically as though they had been clay pipes in a shooting gallery at the county fair.

  The smoke generated from the shooting billowed out and after a short time, obscured the two parties from each other’s view. By this time, though, twelve of the comancheros had been shot down, so it did not really signify. Juarez, although having taken his part in the charge, had another purpose entirely and did not propose to cast away his life needlessly in an act of vainglory. By good fortune rather than anything else, he was not killed in the murderous fire being directed at him and his men by the vigilantes. Once the smoke was thick enough, he peeled off to the right and urged his horse on into a gallop. Fifteen riders were never going to be able to gain the relative security of the hills, but one might.

  It has to be said that Juarez’s motive in abandoning the others and riding hell for leather for the hills were not altogether selfish. He surely wished to save his skin, but the injury which had befallen his sister’s only son was much on his mind. The thought of leaving the boy alone in hostile territory, in charge of a lot of young white girls was not a pleasant one. Why, the vigilantes would string him up on the spot should they come across him! It was therefore partly for altruistic reasons that Juarez swerved off and began galloping away from danger.

  In all the noise and confusion of battle, what with the crash of gunfire, sound of hoofs, neighing of terrified horses, clouds of smoke and all the members of the posse peering into the gloom to mark a possible target, it was possible that Juarez might just have escaped unnoticed. He so very nearly succeeded and if it were not for the fact that Brent Cutler did not have a rifle, then he probably would have done so. As it was, while those around him were blasting away and even Archie was firing
his pistol at the oncoming horsemen, Cutler happened to turn to his left at just the right time to catch a glimpse of a lone rider, plunging through the darkness and likely to be lost from sight given another moment. The others were fully engaged with the task in hand and it would have been absurd to tug at somebody’s sleeve and ask what he should do for the best. The long, sleepless night had given everything a dream-like air and so, without anybody taking the least notice, Cutler walked over to where the horses were and mounted up. Then he set off at a canter after the rider he had spotted.

  All through their ride that night, Mark Seaton had been brooding about the hanging of Brent Cutler’s father. He recalled it vividly and knew that even at the time, he had been uneasy about the business. In retrospect, it had been mighty slick, the way those bonds had supposedly been found on the man’s property. Now, this same man’s son had been despatched to displace Seaton with a sheriff. Well, he had to allow that there was a measure of poetic justice there and no mistake! He liked the look of the young man and felt guilty and ashamed to think of the madness which had seized him and impelled him to an act of what would have been tantamount to murder.

  Seaton saw, from the corner of his eye, the Cutler boy skipping over to the horses and mounting up. Then he caught sight of a fleeting shadow, just on the edge of his vision, and knew that the boy was chasing after one of those scoundrels who was about to escape. Making an exasperated clucking sound, Seaton too went over to the horses. He couldn’t let this green young lawyer go up alone against one of this band of cut-throats! So it was that while the others were concentrating on finishing off the last of the men who had mounted their doomed charge, three men rode off, one after the other, towards the hills.