William Johnstone - Snake River Slaughter

“But you said Sherman killed Marcus,” Kitty replied.

“Yes, he did.”

“Why?”

Gilmore shook his head. “I’m not sure. Evidently they had a falling out of some sort.”

“Mr. Gilmore, do you have any idea what Sherman has in mind now?” Matt asked.

“Yes, I do. He plans to set up an ambush for you. I believe he intends to kill every one of you when you come to town, then taking the herd to Chicago himself.”

“That’s it,” Kitty said. “We aren’t going to town.”

“Kitty, do you think if we don’t go to town, they will just go away?” Matt asked.

“Oh, I-I don’t know what I think,” Kitty said.

“You hired me to see to it that your horses get to Chicago. Why don’t you just let me do my job.”

“I told you, Matt, these men are my family,” Kitty said. “I lost Hank and Timmy. I don’t want any of the others to be killed.”

“I’ll handle it,” Matt said. “There is no need for any of the men to go into town.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t want you killed either. And you can’t go into town to face them, all alone.”

Matt looked at the bodies of the posse men who had been killed the night before.

“I won’t be alone,” he said, mysteriously.

Word spread quickly around town that Sherman had now lost a total of eleven men to failed attempts to take the horses Kitty Wellington was planning on shipping to Chicago. Word also spread that Sherman and the five men he had remaining were planning on ambushing Matt Jensen and Kitty Wellington’s riders when they brought the herd into town today.

Because of that, all businesses were closed and all the residents of town were off the streets. If there was going to be a battle in Medbury, and it looked as if such a battle was going to take place, there would be bullets flying everywhere, and if that was the case, the street was no place to be.

Clay Sherman established his command post, as he called it, at the railroad depot. Burnett was over at the Dunnigan’s store, behind the porch, Walker was on the roof of the apothecary, concealed by the false front. Burke and Carson were in the loft of the livery stable. Grimes was in Anna Cooke’s dress shop which, because it was at the south end of the street, would make the first contact with Jensen and the others when they came into town.

Hearing a whistle, Sherman looked west on the track and saw a train approaching. He watched as the engine came into the station, then left the main track and switched over to a side track. The engine was pulling a long string of empty stock cars, with a parlor car attached at the end. The train came to a squeaking halt, then the engineer released the steam as the huge, powerful locomotive sat on the spur track.

Sherman watched the dispatcher walk out to the train and call something up to the engineer. The engineer and fireman came down from the cab, and the three of them hurried across the tracks before disappearing in the depot.

Sherman climbed up onto the water tower, then looked south. That was when he saw the approaching herd of horses, being driven expertly toward town.

“Ha!” Sherman said, speaking aloud. “This is working out well. You are bringing the herd right to us.”

Sherman cupped his hands around his mouth. “Walker!” he called to the man on the apothecary just across the street. When Walker looked toward him, Sherman pointed toward the herd. “They are coming! Get ready! Tell the others!”

He heard Walker shout to Burke and Carson, then he heard the alarm passed on to the others.

Looking back toward the herd, he saw that it had been stopped. At first, he wondered what was going on, then he saw a wagon coming up the road from the herd. There were two men on the driver’s seat of the wagon, both were carrying rifles. And as the wagon got closer, he saw four men in the back, also carrying rifles. Damn, he thought. They were making this too easy.

“Walker!” he shouted. “They are coming in, in a wagon. Tell the others! Start shooting as soon as they get in range!”

Kneeling down on the ledge that ran around the water tower, Sherman cocked his rifle and waited. For a moment, the wagon was out of site on the other side of the blacksmith shop, but as soon as it appeared again, Sherman fired.

Sherman’s opening shot alerted the others and they began shooting too. For several seconds the street reverberated with the sound of rifle fire.

Matt had come into town riding in a second bottom underneath the wagon. Looking through a narrow opening, he watched for the best opportunity to leave the wagon, slipping out just as it passed behind the blacksmith shop, during which time it was momentarily out of sight from anyone in town.

Running around behind the blacksmith shop, he began moving up the alley, keeping pace with the wagon as the team pulled it, and its grisly load of dead passengers, dressed, not in the uniform of the posse, but in old shirts belonging to the Coventry riders.

When the shooting started, Matt determined where each of the shooters was. Seeing that one of the shooters was in the dress shop, he decided to take care of that one first, believing the seamstress might be in the most danger.

Matt ran up to the back of the dress shop, and saw a woman outside, standing behind a tree as he did so.

“Anna!” he called.

Startled, the woman looked toward him. “Who are you?” she asked in a frightened voice.

“I’m Matt Jensen, I’m—”

“Kitty’s friend,” Anna said.

“Yes. Who is inside?” he asked, pointing toward the shop.

“There is a man in the front of the store,” Anna said. “He has a gun.”

“Go into your house,” Matt said, pointing to the house that was behind the dress shop. “Stay away from the windows.”

Anna nodded, then complied with his directions as Matt slipped in through the back door of the dress shop.

There were a couple of dress forms in the back room of the shop, and one of them was on wheels. Matt picked it up and moved quietly toward the front. He stopped at the door that separated the two rooms and saw the shooter standing at the open front door of the shop, shooting his rifle and cocking it, and shooting again.

Matt gave the dress form a push, and it rolled across the floor of the front room. Startled, the man jerked around, and fired at the rolling dress form. Matt shot back, and the man tumbled out onto the front porch.

Running up to the front of the building, Matt looked out across the street and saw someone rise up from behind the porch of the mercantile to shoot at the wagon. Matt took him down with one shot.

Sherman could actually see the bullets hitting the men who were in the wagon; he even saw dust coming up from the impact, and yet not one of the men reacted in any way to the bullets.

“What the hell?” Sherman said aloud.

“It’s Scraggs!” Walker shouted from the top of the apothecary. “Stop shooting! It’s our own men! They are all dead!”

Matt dashed out of the dress shop then, and seeing him, both Sherman and Walker started shooting. Bullets whizzed by his head and popped dirt up from the street as Matt ran in a zigzagging fashion until he reached the open door of the livery.

“Burke! Carson! He’s in the livery!” Sherman shouted from the water tower.

Once inside, Matt heard a sound from the hayloft above. He also saw little bits and pieces of hay falling down between the cracks.

“Where is he? Where did he go?” a voice asked.

“I don’t know. Sherman said he came in here,” another voice answered.

There were two lofts in the barn, one, on the north end of the barn, was for hay. The other, at the south end of the barn was for equipment. The two lofts were separated by an open space of about forty feet. Matt climbed up onto the equipment loft, then he moved quietly to the edge and, taking concealment behind some wooden barrels, looked across. There were posse members standing on the other side, trying to look down into the barn to find the intruder.