Chapter 2

Cletus drew the job of riding drag that day. He agreed that this was the best place for him, since he had no idea of the territory, except that there were hills and trees everywhere you looked. His job was mostly guarding the spare horses and mules, but he needed to keep a lookout for thieves and bandits who might attack the rear-most wagons of the train.

There were 22 wagons in the train, 20 with people and their goods and 2 with general supplies and stuff belonging to the guards. The latter two were the ones most interesting to Cletus. If asked, he would have admitted to an overweening selfishness springing from a history of having nothing to call his own. Therefore, he cherished his position as drag so that he could keep a close and protective eye on his possessions. That he was also guarding his food supply helped keep his attention focused.

It was a beautiful late-summer day, perhaps a little on the warm side, but Cletus felt that he had nothing to complain about. He would be in paradise if all his days could be like the way this one had begun. He looked as if he were asleep on his horse, but a keen observer would have noticed that his attention did not waver from his job. Therefore, when the bandits showed up, Cletus was ready!

The bandits swept down on the train from a low hill hidden among the trees. They were only about 30 yards away when they first appeared. Cletus recognized that he had no time to pull his carbine from its scabbard; he resolved to never let that happen again. He reacted faster than most people could have, both in reacting to the thieves and in pulling his pistol. As soon as the bandits got close enough, Cletus began shooting. He made no effort to shoot the men—he tried to kill and wound the horses. He had five shots available, and four horses were put out of action. All four of these horses fell and threw their riders. The fallen horses and men were in the middle front of the charging riders. This caused the charge to be broken as the other riders tried to swing around the downed men and horses.

Cletus holstered his now empty pistol and drew his other one. Again, he shot at the horses, but only hit three such that they fell. The attacking bandits now had lost seven dead and two wounded. Not bad for a lone defender! But Cletus was not finished. Amid the chaos, he now had time to draw his Henry. It was awkward firing a carbine at the enemy dashing to and fro, but Cletus managed to hit two more horses before the remaining bandits turned tail and fled.

All of this happened so fast that the rest of the guards were just beginning to show up. There was nothing for them to do. The guard captain sent them back to their positions in case there were more bandits waiting to attack, though he didn't expect it. Then Cletus was the most surprised he had ever been in his whole life: the guard captain came over and shook Cletus' hand and thanked him for doing an excellent job. That was the first time a White man had ever shaken his hand or congratulated him, personally, on a job well done! Cletus was struck dumb! He couldn't even mumble an acknowledgment. The guard captain, Harold Jones, looked hard at Cletus, and nodded his head. He then rode away to supervise the recapture of the horses that had run away during the shooting.

Cletus finally recovered his senses and swapped two loaded cylinders from his belt for the two empty ones in his guns and put in new caps. He also reloaded his Henry from his bandoleer. At the first opportunity, he planned to recharge the two empty cylinders. He had a total of eight cylinders, counting the two in his guns. That was 40 shots, and then he would really be in trouble, so he wanted to make every shot count; besides, it just took a long time and both hands to change cylinders in a pistol and put in new caps—time in which a man could get himself killed!

Cletus was also worried about how long it took him to get his Henry from its scabbard. He had to lean over and reach down beside his saddle to pull the carbine from under his leg and stirrup strap. After supper, he planned to see if he could move the scabbard to the front of his saddle where the gun would be easier to get to.

Nobody else was looting from the dead bandits, so Cletus figured it must be his job, since he had killed them. Nine corpses yield a little cash, about $13, and several guns worth keeping. There were four of the "Army brass" like he used, so he took them with plans to hang them from his saddle so he could reach them in a hurry. Cletus found that one man was about his size, so he stripped the pants and shirt from the body and stuck them with his other clothes in his pack. He found a Derringer stuffed into a boot, so Cletus took it and stuffed it into his boot; you never knew, one day he might need a hide-out gun.

That evening, after supper, Cletus fiddled with his carbine scabbard until he found a way to hang it from the front of his saddle. One of the Mormons was a leatherworker, so Cletus paid him $1 to put some straps on his saddle so that he could mount the scabbard. It was placed just ahead of the saddle frame beyond Cletus' right knee with the butt sticking straight up. The leatherworker made a cover for it so that the scabbard would not fill with water in rainy weather.

While he was about it and for the same $1, the man mounted four pistol holsters, with rain shields, on Cletus' saddle within easy reach while Cletus was mounted. Cletus now felt that he was adequately armed, and ready for whatever the outlaws could throw at him.

That same evening, while his saddle was being modified, Cletus looked up the guard captain and volunteered for permanent duty as drag rider. The captain was very happy with this, because the other guards felt that riding drag was beneath their dignity and somehow an insult. Cletus had just saved him a lot of bother. Besides, the captain now had a reliable man back there.

Nothing much happened for the next week and travel settled into a routine. The train got up before daylight to eat and get ready so that they could leave at first daylight. They traveled until noon and stopped for an hour to eat and rest the draft animals. They then traveled until dark, when they stopped for supper and spent the night. They were only making 12 to 15 miles per day because the wagons were so heavily loaded. In a straight line, they were nearly 300 miles from Kansas City, but the twists and turns they would have to make would push that up to about 500 miles.

No amount of argument or cajoling by the wagon master could convince the Mormons that they needed to jettison some of their cargo. Everybody now realized that they would be lucky to make it to Kansas City before the bad weather set in, but their attitude was "God will provide." Cletus decided that he didn't care, winter in one place was pretty much the same to him as winter in another place. He expected to get cold, he just didn't know how cold that could be!

They were now moving into an area notorious for bandits. All of the guards were cautioned to be extra alert and all of the men were told to have their guns ready to help the guards at need. Based on his Army experience, Cletus had doubts that these men would be much help against bandits, but a gun was a gun. You had to keep your head down when somebody was shooting in your direction, because you never knew when he might get lucky.

Cletus expected to be the target of most raids, because the White men in Missouri had nothing but contempt for "niggers." Therefore, they would figure that he would be the soft target and would probably even run if he were shot at. There were two men herding the horses, two men driving the last two wagons and one man (actually a 12-year-old boy) driving the small herd of cattle and goats. They all had guns and were supposed to take orders from the guards, but Cletus knew that none of them would take orders from a "nigger," even an experienced Army sergeant. So he knew that defense of this end of the wagon train would depend on him.

Sure enough, they were hit by a gang of 15 bandits just before the noon break. The bandits came charging out of the trees, shouting and firing their pistols like madmen. The two drovers herding the horses put their horses into a run and headed off into the trees away from the charging bandits. The boy with the cattle and goats froze in place and the two wagon drivers jumped down form their wagons and ran for the trees. Cletus saw that the boy would be quickly killed if he wasn't rescued, so he rode toward the boy and grabbed him by the arm. He pulled the boy toward the last wagon and threw him under it with orders to stay there.

By this time, the bandits had nearly reached him. Cletus pulled one of his saddle guns and turned in his his saddle to see the bandits. They were so close now that he couldn't miss. He fired at their horses and killed five with five head shots. This was enough to break the charge directly at him. He dashed around to the other side of the wagon, holstered the empty pistol, and pulled his Henry. He fired across the wagon at the bandits; they were now moving slowly enough that downing a horse would not kill its rider. Cletus preferred that the live enemies stay on horses so that they would be easy to identify.

Cletus had learned to direct his horse by knee movements, he didn't have to use the reins. He directed his horse to keep moving. Back and forth, near the wagon, Cletus stayed on his horse, but never came to a complete stop. He figured that made him a tougher target, particularly with the bandits trying to move fast. A man on a moving horse has more difficulty hitting his target the faster the horse is moving. Cletus hoped this gave him a little edge over the bandits. Cletus emptied his Henry as fast as he could lever the action and aim. He hit several of the bandits, killing three.