Chapter 3

I was on their trail for two days before I found where they had holed up: a cave way off away from anything else. I probably would never have found them if I had not known exactly what I was looking for along the trail. They stopped often to rest. In this heat, they would have had to let the horses rest, but they also had a wounded man that they were being very careful with. Maybe it was because he was the only one who knew how to find this cave, or maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, I was grateful for it.

The cave was perfect as a home away from home. There was a stream flowing out of the cave, so they had plenty of water. I guessed there was some form of ventilation because there was no sign of them leaving once they had entered the cave. That suggested that they had plenty of torches and the possibility of several chambers connected to the main one. Either way, this seemed to be the ideal choice of a place to hide from the law.

I found some shade for my horse, took the shotgun with plenty of ammunition, and made my way as stealthily as I could to the entrance. I took off my hat and peeked around the edge of the entrance to try to get some idea of where the men were hiding. No matter how much I pushed my luck, I could not spot the men within the cave.

There was nothing but gloom inside that first part of the cave. Wherever the men were, they were far enough back so that no light leaked out the front door. It occurred to me that these guys might be smarter than the average thief.

I had no choice but to enter the cave. The ideal situation would be for me to see them before they saw me, so I was going to have to be damned sneaky when I entered the cave. I took off my spurs because I did not want them to jingle as I walked. That was all I had that made extraneous noise, so I was soon ready to enter the cave.

I held my shotgun in both hands in a position such that I could get it to my shoulder and ready to fire almost as quickly as I thought of doing it. Both hammers were cocked, and I had my finger beside the trigger guard ready to fire on a moment’s notice. I had my shotgun because I was afraid of a ricochet from a pistol bullet. The buckshot lost velocity very quickly, so I figured that it was relatively safer to use when the time came. Of course, I had my two pistols along if I needed them.

There was a tunnel nearly 60 yards long before the first chamber, and there were several turns in the tunnel, so that there was a very effective barrier to escaping light. I had to make my way through almost complete darkness for a few feet before I started picking up enough light from the chamber in use to be able to see what I was doing. I had never before thought of using a cave as a hideout, but I was rapidly coming to appreciate what a cave had to offer for such a use.

At last, I got close enough to hear two men talking. “Jace is hurt real bad, but Tom will not admit it. How much longer do you think that Jace can hold out?”

“Shit, Bill, I do not know. He is a tough one, all right. He has at least one buckshot in a lung, and I can hear air wheeze every time he takes a breath. The first time I saw his back, I figured that he would not last more than a couple of hours, but he is still hanging in there. From the number of wounds on his back, Jace must have three or four holes in his lungs at least. Uh-oh, let us change the subject—here comes Tom.”

“Dammit, boys, I do not think that my brother is going to make it. What do you think?” There was a short silence, enough time for both men to shake their heads. “What am I going to do? We cannot stay in this blasted cave much longer. We are running out of feed for the horses. Yet, there ain’t no way that Jace could ride even a hundred yards the way he is feeling now. The truth is, I think that he is living off the laudanum that I have been pouring down him. Sometimes, I think that the most Christian thing I could do would be to put a bullet in his head, but I just cannot do that to my own brother.”

“Well, Tom, Jace is my cousin, and I do not know if I could shoot him like that myself. The trouble is, we have got to do something. Like you said, we have to get more horse feed if we stay here more than two days. Frankly, I am lost. I do not know where the hell we are, and I ain’t sure that I could get out alive without someone to lead the way. Joe, what do you think?”

“I agree with both of you. Bill, I could not shoot you, so I know how Tom is feeling. I do know this, though. If I felt as bad as Jace seems to, I would put a bullet in my own head at the first opportunity.”

There was some more conversation along this line for the next few minutes, but the talk was cut off by the sound of a pistol shot from nearby. Tom almost shouted, “Oh, my God. I got to check on Jace.”

Apparently, the other two men stayed where they were. I could not be sure because I could not see around the bend to where they were standing. Suddenly, I heard Tom’s voice again. “Bill, Joe, Jace done shot himself in the head. He is as dead as a doornail. What are we going to do?”

Joe said, “Well, Jace has solved our problem. We can leave now. Let us divide the money we got from the bank tonight and leave tomorrow. There ain’t nothing to keep us here.”

“But what about a funeral for Jace? We cannot just leave him here.”

“Why not, Tom? We could not get him to any place for a funeral in this here heat. We can cover his body with rocks and call that a burial. Joe, Tom, are you with me on that?”

There was reluctant agreement from the other two men, so that was what they decided to do. Uh-oh, now I had to act. I had to turn in Jace’s body to collect that $100, and I sure as hell was not going to give that up without a fight.

I held my shotgun at the ready and stepped around the bend in the tunnel to face the three men. “Okay, Boys, there has been a change in plans. You three and Jace are going back to town with me so that I can collect the reward.”

Dammit, I should have known better that to let them see me. I should have just shot all three of them from the dark, but I was too tender hearted to do the sensible thing. They all knew that they would hang if they went with me, so they all tried to draw their revolvers. Thank God that I was ready for them when they did.

They were standing pretty close together to make conversation easy, so I had no trouble putting buckshot into every one of them. I let go with both barrels when they tried to draw, and I think that all 24 of them buckshot hit one or the other of the men. Anyway, all three of the robbers were a bloody mess by the time I could hear again.

After satisfying myself that all four of the bandits were indeed dead, I went out to fetch my horse. This was the last of the feed that I had for him, so I was glad to see the feed that the robbers had stored in the cave. I took care of all six horses before I pulled the four dead men into the first chamber. I ate some supper before I did anything else, but I did search all of the bodies after that. I came up with $96.31 from their moneybelts and pockets, and that already more than paid for the hunt for them.

I found the bank money, and I made no effort to count that. I just took the bank manager’s word for how much had been stolen. I will admit that I was tempted to just take the bank loot and ride off, but I got to thinking of all of the farmers and business men who had every cent of their money in the bank, and just could not bring myself to steal their livelihood. I decided to just go with the rewards and let the rest kind of slide.

The next morning, it took me a couple of hours to get everything ready to leave the cave, and that troubled me a bit because it meant that I was going to spend two days, minimum, on the trail with the four dead men. I just hoped that the weather would cool off a bit so that the bodies would not decompose too fast. I had to have four bodies to collect all of my money.