There was no sign of anybody at the Marshal’s Office and so Bob Barker drew his pistol and shot out the windows. His brother Mike did the same with the windows of a few neighbouring properties. Passers by began to flee in alarm and within a minute or two at most, the street near the office was deserted. The four men sat on their horses and waited for Hammond, and also anybody else who felt like thwarting their wishes, to come and get what was waiting for them.
Marshal Hammond and the two deputies heard the shooting coming from the centre of town and knew at once that they had been misled. Hammond did not bother even to hint at such childish sentiments as, “I told you so”. He just said, “I think there is need of us.” and turned his horse’s head south.
Now the response of most ordinary, sane and level-headed persons to the sound of gunfire is to flee precipitately away from it. Lawmen are a special case and Jeremiah Hammond and the two deputies from Wichita would have been neglecting their duty were they not to have set off at a gallop towards the shooting which they could hear coming from the centre of town. Unfortunately, there will always be a few foolhardy and injudicious types who, on hearing shooting, will make their way to where the action is; notwithstanding the fact that whatever is taking place is no affair of theirs. Esther Hammond and Chris Turner were drinking in a tavern just down the road aways from the Marshal’s office and when they heard the shots, as Bob Barker and his relatives and friend began to shoot the place up, Esther said at once, “Hey, it sounds like something interesting is happening. Let’s go take a look, Chris.”
The few other patrons in the Poor Struggler at that time of day, had more sense than the youngsters. At the first sign of trouble, they had thrown themselves to the sawdust covered floor and were not intending even to look from the windows, lest they intercepted a bullet in some vital part of their anatomy. Chris Turner was disposed to join these folk on the floor, because he had no curiosity about the gunfire and did not wish to become involved.
“I don’t think we should go outside, Esther,” he told her, “Look at all these fellows here, even the barkeep. They are not rushing out into the street. They are keeping their heads down.”
The girl’s eyes were glittering with a combination of whisky and excitement and she was was not apt to be deflected from her purpose by such, as she saw it, mealy-mouthed and cowardly counsel. Although they had been having a pleasant enough time in the saloon, of a sudden she turned on her friend, saying, “You know, I wonder sometimes what I ever saw in you, Chris Turner. If you were any sort of man, you would come with me so that we could see what is going on. It sounds right exciting.”
Greatly against his better judgement, Turner agreed to go down the street a short distance with her and just peep around the corner to see what was happening.
Wichita was not, in 1879, a large city and it did not take Hammond, Fletcher and Seagrove long to ride from the outskirts of town to the vicinity of their office, which was located near to the centre. As they turned the corner, they could see the whole length of the street and it was immediately apparent that the place was nigh on deserted, save for four men on horseback who were loitering a few hundred yards down the road. Right about where the office was, in fact.
The three men, Marshal Hammond and the two deputies accompanying him, had not yet been seen and so they retreated back round the corner to discuss the best course of action. The young men looked to Jeremiah Hammond for advice and he said, “As I read it, we have two choices. We could take it as certain that those men down the street mean mischief and just sight our rifles and start shooting from here. Or, we could go up to them, ask them what they are about and challenge them to throw down their weapons. It is up to you two. I will go along with what you want to do.”
“I do not know,” said Fletcher slowly, “As it would sit well with me to kill men from a distance in this way, without even giving them a chance to surrender.”
Seagrove nodded his head in agreement. “It would be a scurvy trick to play, even upon villains like that.”
“I am of the same mind,” said Hammond, “It would go against the grain for me to shoot any man unawares. Howsoever, if we ride down that street now towards them, they will have time to identify us all and I do not know if they share our code of honour. They might just kill us before we came within hailing distance of them.”
“What then?” said Fletcher.
“Why don’t we leave our horses here and then move stealthily round the back of the stores, until we are practically on top of them? Then we could cock our pieces, take aim and call upon them from cover. It would still give them a chance to give up, but might tilt the odds somewhat in our favour.”
The scheme that Hammond put forward, found favour in the eyes of the two deputies and so they tethered their horses to a rail and made off round the alleyways behind the saloons and stores which ran along the street.
“Nothing is happening,” said Esther Hammond, sounding disappointed, “We should have come straight out, instead of dithering about.” The two youngsters were looking round a storefront at the four mounted men outside the Marshal’s office. There were some grounds for feeling, as the girl evidently did; that nothing was happening. The four riders sat at their ease; smoking and idling, like they did not have a care in the world. Had it not been for the shooting earlier, anybody watching them now might think that they were merely killing time before going off on a picnic or something similar.
Appearances are all too often deceptive, and Robert Barker and his three accomplices were in reality anything at all but relaxed. It was part of their habitual façade thought, for none of them ever to appear outwardly concerned about anything much. But for all that they looked to be chatting among themselves in a carefree and inconsequential fashion, all four were keyed up and prepared either to do murder or be killed in their turn.
Esther Hammond could not of course, at the age of seventeen, be reasonably expected to know any of this. To her, the fun and games had ended and all she saw were a bunch of amiable looking fellows sitting on their horses and talking together as though there was nothing amiss. She did not even realise that these were the men who had been responsible for shooting up the nearby store fronts. She was almost on the point of going right up to the men and asking them what had been going on. Indeed, she had shaken off Chris Turner’s restraining hand and taken the first step into the open street, when she gave a gasp of horror. There, on the other side of the street, was her father.
Her father did not look as though he had seen her and so Esther shrank back into the shadows. She and Turner were in a narrow little lane which led off the main street. From what she had seen, her father and two other men were hiding in another such lane between buildings and they had been, like her, peering cautiously at the four riders. Esther was torn between a wish to run away at once and so avoid her father’s wrath and the overwhelming desire to watch what would next chance. The whisky that she had been drinking over the last hour clouded her faculties to the extent that she made the wrong decision at this point and chose to remain where she was and see the show.
Hammond and the other two men had moved swiftly but silently along the back of the stores, until they were close to the office. Then they found a gap between buildings and so reached the street. “I reckon we had best prepare ourselves for action,” said the Marshal, matching the deed to the words by cocking the Winchester. Fletcher and Seagrove did the same with their own rifles. “Who wants to make the call?” enquired Hammond.
“You can, if you will.” said Dave Fletcher, whereupon with no hesitation or further debate, Jeremiah Hammond leaned round the corner of the building, drew down on the nearest of the men that he could see and cried in a loud voice;
“Throw down your weapons. You are surrounded and if you make any other move, we will shoot.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth, before a withering fire was directed at him. He fired once before withdrawing into the shelter of the alleyway and had the satisfaction of seeing the man he had been aiming at fall from his horse.
“They are damned quick off the mark,” said Seagrove, “I mind that there is little intention there to throw down their weapons.”
“You might well draw that conclusion.” said Hammond dryly. When the fire from the opposing party slackened somewhat, he leaned out, snapped off another couple of shots and then retreated again. His brief look was enough to assure him that the man he had shot had not risen from the ground and was certainly out of the game. “One down and three to go.” he remarked.
When the fresh bout of shooting began, Esther at first put her hands over her ears like a little girl. Then, feeling that she had shamed herself by doing so, she tried to affect a nonchalance that she was very far from feeling. In spite of all that she had said about hating her father, she knew that those men in the road were trying to kill him in earnest and the thought scared her. However much he had irked her over the years of her childhood, she did not wish him dead.
Hammond said to Fletcher and Seagrove, “Well boys, we can’t let this go on all day. It will cast into hazard the decent, law-abiding citizens who are cowering in their homes. Somebody will be getting killed by a stray shot if we stay cowering here much longer.” The two deputies looked at him enquiringly, eager to hear his suggestion. He continued, “I am going to run to that store over the way there. While those fellows are firing at me, you two mark them well and see if you can catch them unawares. When I am safely there, they will be forced to divide their fire between us and this should give us an edge. After all, they are in the open and we are not. Also, we are using rifles and they seem only to have pistols.”
The men outside the Marshal’s Office were not firing now. They were evidently waiting to see what would next happen. None of them expected to see Jeremiah Hammond sprinting from one side of the street to the other and they hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then the deputies from Wichita opened up on them and they had to take their eyes from Hammond in order to return fire.
As soon as he was in the store, the owner of which was crouched behind his counter in fear, Hammond crawled to the window and smashed it with the butt of his rifle. The breaking glass attracted a hail of fire from the street. The Marshal waited until it died down before looking from the window. Meantime, Fletcher and Seagrove kept popping their heads round the corner of the building and engaging their opponents. This kept the three men on horseback fully occupied and, as he had expected, they momentarily forgot all about the Marshal. He stood up and fired two carefully aimed shots, bringing down another of the men. Before the two survivors had a chance to reply, he ducked back out of sight. The set-up was a neat one now and with a little good fortune, he and the other two would be able to fire from cover like this with their rifles until they had killed the other men as well.
To Marshal Hammond’s horror, he saw Dave Fletcher now bolt from the alley-way, coming towards him. Neither then nor later was he ever able to figure out what the young man had been about when he made this move. After he had himself run across the road like that, the men shooting at them would be alert to such a gambit being tried again. So it proved, because half way across the street, a bullet caught the deputy and he stumbled and fell. Hammond immediately tried to draw their fire, by loosing off a couple of shots at them, but it was too late. As soon as Fletcher was down, both the remaining gunmen fired at him as he lay there. As they concentrated their attention on the fallen man, Hammond was able to pick off another of them. Only one was now left.
“Are you ready to surrender now?” called the Marshal, “Or will you go the same way as your partners?”
The single survivor of the four men who had started the shooting had moved out of sight. He shouted back, “Well now, that depends. Is that man we killed Jeremiah Hammond?”
“No, you cowson,” called back Hammond, resorting for once to vulgarity, “He is alive and well here and will soon put half an ounce of lead through your heart.”
Now there was no way that Bob Barker, who was the only man left alive on the outlaw side of the shootout, could know how many man were concealed out of his sight. He probably guessed that even if he lit out right this minute without further ado, he would have a posse hot on his heels which would bring him back for trial and eventual hanging. That at any rate was how Hammond later figured the man’s actions, because instead of either showing defiance by firing at them again or simply turning tail and running, Barker took it into his head to seize a hostage.
Esther had been growing more and more thrilled by events as the gun battle raged. For one thing, she had never in her life heard guns being fired in anger and for another this was her own father taking down a set of villains. There was something kind of impressive about it, or so she thought. Chris Turner was in a different state entirely; he was terrified out of his wits and kept clutching at the girl’s sleeve to draw her back. He feared, with some justification, that she would end up with a bullet through her head if she carried on exposing herself in this way. When Bob Barker spurred on his horse straight towards them, the boy and girl reacted in very different ways. Esther just stood there, unable to work out what was happening, while Chris Turner grabbed her arm to try and hustle her away to safety.
Barker said urgently, “You girl, you stand to. I want you up here with me, for we are going on a little ride together.”
Turner said, “Leave her be. She is nothing to do with this.” He tried to move in front of Esther to shield her from the man waving a pistol at them.
“I will not ask twice,” said Barker, “You boy, move away from her now.” When there was no sign that Chris Turner was intending to comply with this instruction, Bob Barker shot him dead on the spot. Esther began screaming hysterically.
By this time, Marshal Hammond could tell that the fighting was over and that the surviving member of the gang was about to make his getaway. He emerged from the store with his rifle cocked and ready. Deputy Seagrove came out of the alley where he had been sheltering at the same time and the two of them began walking past the slain body of their comrade towards where they supposed that the last of the men would be found, although he was not presently in view. When the screaming began, Hammond knew at once that it was his daughter’s voice and he broke into a run.
Having killed Turner, Robert Barker reached down and grabbed hold of Esther’s wrist. “Come on, little lady,” he said, “Up you come. He hauled the terrified girl up, to sit before him. Her skirt rucked up and even in the middle of the deadliest of danger, she was still embarrassed and did her best to cover herself. Barker said, “No matter about showing your petticoats and drawers.”
Having somehow succeeding in getting the girl seated in front of him on the saddle, Barker emerged from the alleyway to find the Marshal and deputy about forty or fifty feet from him. He put his pistol to the girl’s head and said, “Either one of you makes me nervous and I am going to kill this girl. Same goes if I am pursued or shot at. I will make sure to live long enough to pull the trigger and finish her.”
Esther Hammond caught sight of her father and screamed out, “Daddy!”
“Daddy?” said Barker in amazement, “Why I call this as good as a play. That was a lucky chance, finding a lawman’s daughter by the side of the road. Remember now, any trouble and she dies first.” Then he wheeled round and set off at a sedate trot, confident that the girl’s father would not molest him in any way.
It would have been mad folly to chase right after the man who had captured his child. This much, Hammond knew instinctively. He said to Seagrove, “Do you know which of them that was?”
“Yes,” was the reply, “That was the famous Robert Barker himself.”
“Tell me,” asked Marshal Hammond, “Would you say that he is a man who threatens and bluffs, or is he rather one of those who carries out what he says he will do?”
The deputy did not hesitate. He said, “Listen now, if Bob Barker says he’ll do a thing, then it is as good as done. He is not boastful and nor does he brag, but just tells things as they are. He said he would shoot that girl if he was pursued and I believe that that is just exactly what he will do.”
Hammond felt two conflicting emotions, each tugging him in the opposite direction from the other. On the one hand, he felt great satisfaction that Chris Turner was now dead and that the only thing linking his daughter to the killing of Grover McPherson was out of the reckoning for good. On the other hand, he felt terror at the fact that the child was now in the hands of a ruthless outlaw. Neither of these feelings had any reference to Scripture or religion, which was strange considering the type of man that Hammond was. They were deep and visceral urges and fears such as any father might fall prey to. Whatever else befell him on this trip, Jeremiah Hammond knew that something had changed within him and that things would never be the same again in his life.
Meanwhile, there was a whole heap of clearing up to be done and since Hammond was not planning on riding straight after the man who had snatched Esther, he thought that he might as well lend a hand.
The first melancholy task which Hammond and Segrove undertook was to carry the body of Dave Fletcher into a store and set it gently on a table there. Having done this, they went to sort through the carnage in the street outside the Marshal’s Office. One of the horses ridden by the men was dead and another was laying in the road, unable to get up and whinnying pitifully. Seagrove dispatched it with a bullet through the ear. What became of the third riderless horse, nobody ever knew. It had run off during the shooting and was never seen again.
There were four corpses to deal with, apart of course from Fletcher’s. Hammond and Seagrove dragged them onto the sidewalk and laid them side by side. Seagrove said, “These two are Barker boys. This here is Jethro and that is Michael. I don’t know who these other two are.”
“Well I recognise one of them. This boy is called Chris Turner.”
“How do you come to know him? He looks awful young to be riding with outlaws.“
“He wasn’t with these fellows. I guess he was just in the street.” said Marshal Hammond, neatly evading any explanation of how he came to know the boy.
Now that everything had calmed down, the citizens of Wichita were drifting onto the scene to tut and say things like, “Lordy, what a to do!” and “My, fancy such a thing happening here, of all places.” They viewed the four corpses as though they were a waxwork exhibition, until Marshal Hammond, feeling a mite disgusted, reproved them by saying, “Show some respect for these men, now. They are dead. This is not a carnival sideshow.”
Once the undertaker had been sent for and folk reassured that no more trouble was on the horizon, Seagrove opened up the office and brewed up some coffee for him and Hammond.
“What is your purpose now” asked Seagrove.
“Why to ride after him you call Bob Barker and free my daughter, of course.”
“You don’t look to be in a hurry.”
“It would be madness to let him see me today. He would shoot the girl in front of me. He owes me an injury in any case and so might kill my daughter whether or no I pursue him. Would you think him capable of such viciousness?”
“I would not have said so, no,” said Seagrove, trying to be fair to Barker, “He will shoot any man, even for looking at him in the wrong way, but I don’t think he would kill a girl like that just for meanness.”
“Could I appeal to his honour? Would he face me in a fair fight? Meaning just the two of us, man to man?”
“He might do at that, but I would not bet on it.”
Hammond stood up and walked around the office, He said, “Would you let me borrow that horse I rode today?”
“Buster? Sure, keep him as long as you have need.”
“Where do you think Barker will be heading?”
“North. He won’t hole up at his father’s house, nor Hutchinson either. I mind I told you that he was suspected of holding up a mail train on the Union Pacific? At a guess, I would say that he has friends up that way, maybe even what one might term a gang.”
“The road forks after leaving here to the north, doesn’t it? One way goes to Topeka and the other to Lincoln and Fort Kerney. Which path will he take?”
“Fort Kerney,” said Seagrove promptly, “It was just outside there that the train was ambushed.”
Hammond walked slowly down the street to where he had left Buster tethered up. It was not a marvellous specimen as far as horses went, but then he was not aiming to enter it in a race or compete in a dressage show. It would be enough if the creature would just bear him safely for forty miles or so. It looked as though it would be tough enough for a little adventuring off the beaten track and that mattered far more than breeding or looks.
Jolly good stuff. Very descriptive. I envision a slightly younger Tommy Lee Jones playing the part of the Marshal.