Chapter 7

Joe and Sam claimed that they knew the men we needed and could have them hired within three days, especially when they told the men how much money that they made on their previous run. I increased the wages for Joe and Sam to 60¢ per day. They thought that was fair, and they were very happy.

I went back to see Mr. Arthur and told him that I would take on the job for $60 per day. The price shocked him a little, but he agreed when I pointed out how many men I had to hire to insure that his wagons got through. We signed a contract that his lawyer wrote up, and I had my second employer.

I dropped in on Mr. Banner and told him that my crew might be a day or two late getting back from Ft. Grafton, but we would try to be back on schedule. He okayed that, and my crew was still in line for the job with him when we got back to Los Angeles.

We had some low mountains to cross, and we were heavily loaded. Frankly, I did not expect us to make our schedule because of the heavy loads in each wagon. Not only were we hauling civilian loads, but we also had some stuff headed for the Army. Ft. Grafton was both a civilian town and an operating military post.

The important point here was that we were taking two Gatling guns to Ft. Grafton. They were in the original shipping crates used for shipping by sea, so it would be a major job to get them ready to use. Nevertheless, practically everybody in Los Angeles knew what we were hauling, so I expected that at least one bandit gang would try to take them from us. I warned all of my men about this, but I was not too sure just how seriously they took the situation. Well, any man who slacked off during this trip was going to be looking for another job real quick-like.

There was one Gatling gun per wagon, but that made quite a load considering everything that was packed with it. We had everything for the weapon but live ammunition. The Gatling gun did not use regular rifle ammunition, so there would be another separate trip for that. I figured that I would be hired for that trip, too, if we made this one safely.

There were four wagons with the usual mixture of freight, mostly the normal flour, etc. There were the two wagons with the Gatling guns, a chuck wagon, and a wagon for the miscellaneous stuff belonging to the train crew and the guards. The wagonmaster, Josh Robins, was easy enough to get along with, and he left me alone to handle the guard duties.

The first day out was no problem, but the second day was a real pain in the ass. There were no attacks on the wagons, but a wheel was broken on two of the wagons loaded with general freight. As any prudent wagonmaster would have done, Josh had spare wheels on hand. The difficulty was that the wagons were so heavy that they had to be unloaded partially before the wheels could be changed. That really cut into our rate of progress, and we only made six miles that day.

At least, the cook was up to the job, and we had decent food at every meal. I was considering hiring him if I ever needed a trail cook. The next day, we made up some of the lost travel distance. We managed to make 12 miles. Yesterday had got us into the mountains, and that was part of what had slowed us down. Now, we were going downhill at a very gentle angle, so the oxen did not have to work so hard. Everybody was happy for that, though nobody asked the opinion of the oxen.

Josh told me that we were coming to a mostly flat area, and that was where they were usually hit by bandits or Indians. There were forests on both sides of the road, so an attacker could hide in there and be very hard to see until the shooting started. Powder smoke gave away the guns, but the Indians had to stand up to do a decent job of shooting an arrow at us, and that was when they could be most easily seen.

Okay, I had my men riding their horses at the edge of the tree line. They were to shout a warning if they saw anything suspicious. They were also not to be afraid to shoot if they had the least suspicion that there might be troublemakers within reach. I knew that every one of us would hear the sound of a shotgun being fired. The men rode with their sawed-off shotguns in hand and their long guns hanging from the saddle horn. The sawed-off shotguns were loaded with standard shells, and the long shotguns were loaded with hogloads. Of course, the men also carried their personal revolvers.

My plan, if we were attacked, was to pull the first four wagons to the right side of the road and to stop. The remaining four wagons would pull even with them on the left side of the road. The men could find shelter between the two lines of wagons and should be adequately protected from anything shot at them except for arrows dropping from a high arc. In that case, they could get under the wagons. No attacker was going to shoot at the oxen because they were the only way that the wagons could be moved. Even the Indians figured that the oxen were too tough to eat.

We were about a mile onto the flat part of the road when the trouble started. One of the men on the left side of the road yelled a warning and fired a shot into the trees. Only moments after he fired, he was hit by a bullet in the fleshy part of his left upper arm.

Immediately, Josh shifted the first four wagons to the right and had the last four wagons move up beside them on the left. This left an aisle between the two columns about four feet wide. That was wide enough to provide fighting space for the guards and hiding space for the non-combatants. With Josh directing the movements, everything and everybody moved so smoothly that it looked like we had rehearsed it.

The men on horseback on the right side of the road, the side where there were no shooters, rode to the stopped wagons and ground-hitched their horses (dropped the reins to the ground). They grabbed both of their shotguns and ducked under the wagons to reach the aisle between the wagons.

In general, few men practiced enough with their guns to be accurate shooters because ammunition was too expensive to be “wasted” on practice. The result was that, in a gun battle, a lot of bullets flew helter-skelter, but few hit the intended target. I was counting on that, and that was why I had my men armed with the sawed-off shotguns.

The men on horseback on the left side of the road turned into the forest and rode as fast as they dared back among the trees. The idea was for my people to get behind the ambushers and to have them in a crossfire. With shotgun pellets flying all about, the ambushers were likely to panic and run.

I was not worried about the men at the wagons being hit because of the way the shotgun pellets lost force so quickly from the sawed-off shotguns. That shortened barrel wasted a lot of the energy from the burning powder and kept it from being imparted to the pellets. About 30 yards was the limit of the killing range of those pellets when fired with black powder as the propellent. The same was not true for the hogloads, even when fired from the sawed-off shotguns.

The panic among the ambushers resulted in nine of them being killed. After the very short fight was over, we looted the dead men and took the horses. They would be sold and the entire loot would be pooled and divided among the men and me. The difference was that the wounded man would get a double share. On top of that, every one of the men would collect their four-bit bonus for being shot at.

Once we had collected the loot and the horses, we ate lunch. Josh restarted the wagon train after lunch and we managed to make a total of 10 miles that day. In three days, we were a shade over half way to Ft. Grafton and were on schedule. That evening, there was a little celebration of our successful defense.

That was the first time for such a thing for this group, and everybody was relieved that we only had one wounded man. Quite often, at least one man was killed in such a fight, and we were all happy to celebrate how it had turned out. Most of the celebration consisted of singing bawdy songs, but Josh had made sure that there was no alcohol brought along.