To his absolute amazement, Jeremiah Hammond woke the next morning with a good feeling about the day ahead. It was, on the face of it, quite mad. He still did not know where his daughter was to be found and even when he did track her down, there was every possibility that she would refuse his help. On top of that, at least one and possibly three or more hard men were almost certain to be on the way to settle scores with the marshal who had killed their own father and brothers. Looked at from outside, this was hardly a day to be glad on.
In spite of, or perhaps perversely because of all this, Hammond had the air of a schoolboy on the first day of the summer vacation. He felt as though he was now right with the world, after a good long time when he had been at odds with it. It now looked to him that, as he had told old Mr Chang last night, this was truly a case where the sins of the father had been visited upon the child. Something had happened in Esther’s childhood to cause her to turn out this way and since he had had the raising of her, it was plain that he had the greater part of the responsibility for how she had become. All he could hope for now was that she would allow him to ask forgiveness and try to mend the hurt he had caused.
The marshal turned his thoughts to Robert Barker and how that situation might develop. This was a more cheerful theme, for he had in the past gone up against many violent and dangerous men, and every time he had emerged the victor. There was no reason to suppose that this day would prove any different. From what he had seen of the Barker place, they were no more than a set of drunken reprobates and he had dealt with many such.
Mr Chang greeted Marshal Hammond with a wide smile when he came down the stairs. “I see a man at peace with himself.” said the Chinaman.
“Well, well, that is as may be. I shall not be at peace with some people before the day is out, but let come what may. I hope and pray that I shall see you later this day, Mr Chang.”
It lacked a few minutes to eight, when Marshal Hammond arrived in the vicinity of The Lucky Strike saloon in Delano. He had worked out a careful plan for examing every building around that part of the town and figuring out which might be renting out rooms. There were more than he guessed at first. Every time a cattle drive fetched up here from Texas, there would be places needed for all the cowboys who arrived with the steers. Letting rooms was quite an industry in Wichita and Delano. Apart from the hotels, boarding house and so on, many private residences rented out accommodation on the side, as did stores. There was nothing for it, the Marshal would have to knock on every likely door.
Before he set out on the wearisome task of conducting door to door enquiries, Hammond asked in the nearby stores and almost immediately found somebody who claimed to know where the young couple were staying. Frustratingly, the directions he was given did not lead to anywhere with a room to let. The woman living in the apartment though thought that she had seen somebody matching Esther’s appearance, but had seen her up by the bridge.
The morning wore away in this fashion, with many people having seen, or claiming to have seen Esther and Chris Turner, but not one able to give concise and coherent directions to where they might be found. After three hours of this, Hammond recollected himself and realised that he had promised Fletcher that he would help him out in the event that any of the relatives of the men he had shot came looking for mischief. He was desperately keen to find Esther and get her safely back to Linton, but he had also made a promise and that too mattered. He had always been a man of his word and no matter which of his other beliefs might have gone into the melting pot, he aimed to stick ahold of that one.
The marshal gained the impression that Dave Fletcher and Jack Seagrove, the other deputy whom he had not yet met, were both a mite surprised to see him turn up that morning. “What’s wrong boys,” he said jovially, “Thought I’d leave you in the lurch and not show up? Not a bit of it. If I say I’ll do a thing, then I will do it.”
“We are right glad to see you, Marshal Hammond,” said Fletcher, “I think that we are going to need all the help we can get.”
“Why, what’s to do?”
“I will let Seagrove here explain. He knows more about it all than I do.”
“Well, sir,” said Jack Seagrove, “Six weeks ago, Robert Barker and one or two of his brothers, along with some other men, robbed the mail train on the Union Pacific line. Up between Omaha and Fort Kearney. I don’t know if you know the area?”
“I do, Deputy Seagrove,” said Hammond, “But if there is going to be gunplay, I have a mind to tell you to skip the geography lesson and apprise me now of our present danger.”
“Just as you say, sir. Anyway, I have various informants, men who hang round saloons and pass on anything interesting that they here. Both your name and also Robert Barker’s have come up in the last few days.”
Fletcher cut in at this point, saying, “You might say that Jack here runs our secret service branch.”
“Anyway,” said Seagrove, “Barker seemingly saw your name in the newspaper and made out that he knew you. Said you’d shot a good friend of his, man called Tyler?”
“Yes, Patrick Tyler,” said Hammond, “I surely did kill him. I never knew that he was a friend of those Barkers though. This was a while back and some way from these parts.”
“Well Barker was telling anybody who would listen about how he would not mind taking a shot at you. I didn’t set much store by it, men often swear death and destruction to their enemies when they are in their cups. Nothing much comes of it when they sober up.”
“That’s true,” said the Marshal, “I am suspecting that now somebody has rode off with the news that I have shot his pa and little brother and that he and his friends will be riding down here to settle the account. Is that what you would tell us?”
Jack Seagrove shrugged. “Pretty much, yes.”
“Do we have any notion when these men are likely to be hitting town?”
“I hear that another of the Barker boys was nigh to their house yesterday when there was all that shooting. He and his brothers might be there now, they might be heading into town this minute. We don’t know who will be with them either.”
“Well then,” said Hammond, “We had best decide what we shall do.”
***
Esther was very much minded just to abandon Chris Turner and make her own way from Wichita. The only thing holding her back was that she was scared and lonely and needed to have somebody by her side. In all her life, she had never been alone for a longer trip than walking to school or visiting neighbours. The idea of booking a ticket on a railroad train and then getting off in Dodge City was a frightening one to her. If only Chris would liven up his ideas a bit.
As usual, the girl had stayed in the little room until about midday, but this whole caper was becoming more and more irksome to her. It had been a grand adventure at first and one in her father’s eye to boot, but the novelty had worn off now. Chris Turner was amusing enough for an afternoon, but after spending days on end in his company, she was realising what a useless clod he really was. Although she did not put it so in her own thoughts, the fact was that Turner had outlived his usefulness. He had helped her to leave Linton and enabled her to have fun in the saloons; but he was no use to her now at all, just laying on the bed brooding. She had managed to persuade him to get out in the streets with her a couple of times, but he behaved in such a suspicious manner that she was afeared that somebody would look closely at the two of them and connect them with the recent robbery.
So it was that Esther Hammond came to the point where she was ready to take her leave of Chris Turner and find somebody else to travel around with. She told Turner this at about the same time that her father was, unbeknown to her, talking earnestly with the two deputies. To her dismay and disgust, the boy began to cry. “Esther, don’t leave me. I am scared of what we done.”
“For the Lord’s sake, hush up,” she said urgently, “Somebody will be hearing you directly and then where will we be?”
“I can’t help it,” he sobbed,”I want to go home. I did not want to do any of this. You put me up to it, Esther, you know you did.”
“Well, what of it?” said the girl brusquely, “You are the same age as me. We are both seventeen, it is not like you are a little boy who I dragged away from his mother. Although you surely do act like such sometimes.”
She was irritated and a little scared herself and this made Esther speak more roughly than might otherwise have been the case. She softened somewhat and said, “Listen now, if you buck up, then maybe we needn’t part. Put on your boots and we will go for a walk into Wichita itself. We could have a drink in a saloon, you know. That would brace you up a little.”
“I don’t know,” said Chris, “I would rather stay here for a spell.”
“Then before God, you can stay here alone,” said Esther angrily, “I mean it Chris. Either you come out with me right this very minute or we part company for good and all.”
Under such a threat, Chris Turner washed, shaved and made himself presentable. Then the two of them walked along the river to the bridge and crossed over into Wichita.
Marshal Hammond and the two deputies were getting themselves ready for what looked to be a trying and dangerous encounter. There was little point in participating in a gunfight without the necessary weapons and so Fletcher had opened up the armoury; a walk in closet where a store of shotguns, rifles and various large calibre pistols were kept, along with boxes of ammunition.
Jack Seagrove had noticed that Hammond was equipped only with his old Colt Dragoon. “Pardon me for saying so, Marshal Hammond, but you are not proposing to take part in what might be a lively contest armed only with an old cap and ball pistol like that?”
“It has stood me in good stead, these many years.” replied Hammond coldly. His own deputies had been urging him for years to carry something a little more up-to-date and modern. “Those double action handguns don’t suit me,” he told Seagrove, “You pull that hard on the trigger to raise up the hammer, that it compromises your aim. This little beauty; why, once it is cocked, I could fire it by no more than blowing on the trigger.”
“We have not the least idea how many men will be coming with Barker,” Seagrove reminded him, “I suppose you keep an empty chamber under the hammer? That gives you just five shots before you reload. You are surely not going to be fooling around with a flask of powder and a ramrod, not in the middle of a gun battle”
It was a familiar enough debate, but for once, Hammond decided that there was some merit in the argument. If he was up against only one or two men, then he would seldom want more than five shots. But suppose that Robert Barker turned up in Wichita with a whole posse of roughnecks, what then?
So it was that the Marshal had agreed to browse through the weaponry which was contained in the “armoury”. If there really was the chance of a big shoot-out, then he would allow that there might be good reason to carry something extra. He took down a Winchester 73 from the rack and worked the lever a few times. The action seemed smooth enough and so he took that and also a standard .45 which used brass cartridges, rather than the powder and caps that he was used to. He took a couple of boxes of shells as well.
Fletcher and Seagrove just took rifles. Their policy was simple. If any bad men were going to be coming their way with the avowed intention of causing mayhem, then the deputies wanted to be able to stop those men dead at a couple of hundred yards distance; not stand right up close and trade bullets from revolvers.
There had been some slight discussion between Hammond and the other two as to the advisability of riding out to meet the trouble outside the town limits. Nobody wanted shooting on the streets of Wichita. Set against this was the fact that they did not know for sure from which direction the Barkers and their associates would be coming. It was most likely, of course, that they would have stopped off at the farmhouse, if only to lay out the corpses of their near family members. Under normal circumstances, the Marshal’s Office would have arranged for an undertaker to deal with the men who had been killed, but with the threat of violence hanging in the air, it would not have been right to send civilians into hazard in that way.
The three of them finally agreed that they should stay together and just ride patrol around the approaches to Wichita. It would of course be far better if any armed confrontation did not take place on the very streets of the town, but nothing could be guaranteed.
Seagrove had spoken to one of his informants, who had told him that the Barkers would entering the town from the north. Even assuming that they were a little cunning and skirted around a bit before heading into Wichita, this would at most mean that they might come in from the east or west. They would hardly travel all the way round in order to approach from the south. Seagrove therefore suggested, and Fletcher agreed, that they should limit their patrol to the north and a short way to the east and west. The experience that Marshal Hammond had had of paid informants led him to be distinctly dubious about this scheme. He voiced his doubts, but since the other two were in favour and he did not in any case have any sort of official standing in the town, he went along with what the other two suggested; although not without serious misgivings.
Hammond flatly refused to have the same horse as he had drawn on the raid the previous day. Fletcher joshed him a little, saying, “Why that is right ungrateful of you. That beast saved your life yesterday by skittering out of the way when old man Barker opened up on you!”
“Yes,” said Hammond grimly, “And another time, it is likely enough to take me the wrong way and carry me into the path of a bullet. No, I want a quiet and reliable horse, thank you all the same.”
The three lawman mounted up and rode in silence to the edge of town, where the buildings of Wichita gave way to the patchwork of fields which stretched out into the distance. Then they began circling the town at a leisurely trot.
***
Once he was out on the streets and in the fresh air, Turner did feel a bit better. Esther had been right about that. There did not appear to be as many folk about as usual. Although they did not know it, Fletcher and Seagrove had been spreading the word that unless folk had strong reason to be out and about, this might be a good day for staying indoors at home. Not everybody had taken the advice, but a significant enough proportion to make the streets noticeably less crowded than usual.
***
As they trotted around the roads on the edge of town, the Marshal and two deputies talked in a desultory way about this and that; the conversation chiefly concerning itself with shootouts in which they had been caught up. Actually, regular firefights with groups of men exchanging shots were far from being a common occurance. Most of the action that they had all seen was just one man taking shots at them, while they returned fire. The incident in which Hammond and Flethcer had been mixed up the day before was sufficiently out of the ordinary for Seagrove to regret not having been a part of it.
“I mind, Mr Hammond,” said Seagrove, “That being so much older than us, you must have seen more gun battles like the one yesterday?”
“I have seen one or two,” admitted the marshal, “But few that ended in such a bloody conclusion. When it comes right down to it, few men are really careless of their lives and most will not push things to the point of death.”
“Well those Barkers surely did that.” said Dave Fletcher.
“They were in drink,” said Hammond, “That room they were in fairly reeked of poteen. That stuff makes men act crazy. Without that encouragement, I don’t think that we would have had such a bad ending.”
Seagrove said, “So you think that today will just fizzle out into nothing, if that is there is no drink involved?”
“I would not be surprised,” said Marshal Hammond, “It is certainly my devout hope. I do not wish to kill anybody.”
***
Esther Hammond had not been altogether open and honest with Chris. Although she truly was sick of him laying in that room moping, she wanted him to come out and about with her for a purpose. She was developing quite a taste for alcohol and very much wanted to have a few drinks of whisky. Although she had not got herself into the state that Chris had, she had still found the business of the man they attacked getting so badly hurt a little alarming. After a few glasses of liquor though, she did not worry about a thing and had the feeling that nothing could harm her. It had been a few days last since she had experienced that feeling of invincibility and she lacked the confidence to enter a saloon alone. Her scheme in getting Chris up and about tended towards persuading him into taking her to a saloon so that she could get a little tipsy.
“Hey, Chris,” said the girl, as they neared the centre of Wichita, “What say we have a little drink to cheer us up? You have been right down in the dumps lately and it might set the spring back in your walk.”
“I don’t know, Esther,” he said, “I don’t want you to start drawing attention to us like you have done in the past. It would not answer in our present situation.”
“Landsakes, Chris, I am talking about a glass or two of whisky, that’s all. Don’t be such an old woman.”
“Well,” said Turner, wavering, “I suppose it would do no harm. And I could do with loosening up a little. Perhaps you are right, I need to relax myself.”
“That’s the boy!” said Esther, “Come on, this place looks as good as any.”
***
Marshal Hammond reined in his horse on a rise of ground which commanded a good view of the area to the north of the town. “Hutchinson is over in yonder direction, is that right?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Seagrove, “And the Barker place is over there, to the right. Why, of course you know. I was forgetting that you went there with Pete and David here.”
“What’s to hinder those boys from coming down the road there as though passing your town and then doubling back and coming up from behind us?”
“You worry too much, begging your pardon,” said Seagrove, “Those fellows are not that crafty. They do not even know we are on to them. Trust me, we will see them coming and have time to stop them at a distance.”
One thing which Jeremiah Hammond took as an article of faith only slightly less certain-sure than Scripture, was that when a man told you to trust him, then that was the very last thing you ought to do. He looked around uneasily and in his own mind at least, the thing was quite settled; any danger would be coming from the south.
***
After they had had two glasses of rye whisky apiece, Chris Turner began to think that Esther was right and that he worried too much. As for Esther herself, she was a different person when drinking. Fond of her as he was, he could not deny that she had a shrewish streak which had come to the fore in the last couple of days. Now she was drinking, all that had vanished.
“What do you say to trying somewhere else?” said Esther, “This place is not what I would call lively.”
“It is not far past noon,” Turner replied, “I guess most folks is working and cannot spend time in saloons.”
“More fool them!” said Esther. They wandered from the saloon in search of somewhere with a better atmosphere. They didn’t know it, but their search was leading them towards the Marshal’s Office, which was currently closed up.
***
Not least of the sound reasons that Marshal Hammond had for distrusting informants was the tendency which he had often noted in such people to hunt with the hounds and run with the fox. In short, just because you were paying them, this did not mean at all that they were not getting money from other sources at the same time. He was right to be suspicious of Seagrove’s informant, because this man, although he had been paid well by the deputy, was also in touch with Robert Barker and had sent him a message, advising him that if he was making a visit to Wichita, then he would be well advised to approach the town from the south.
So it was that while Hammond and the two deputies were scanning the horizon in the direction of Hutchinson, Robert Barker, his two brothers Jethro and Mike, together with another fellow, all rode in along the Omaha City road.
Bob Barker, as he was known to his intimate acquaintances, was not given to making close friends. One of the few men he had taken a real liking to since he was a boy, had been Pat Tyler. The two of them had been pretty well inseparable, drinking together, going out whoring and undertaking a variety of robberies side by side across Kansas. One day, Tyler had held up a traveller outside the town of Linton and found himself being ruthlessly pursued by the Marshal there. This dedicated individual had tracked Patrick Tyler for miles and then when he caught up with him and Tyler was inclined to offer resistance; he had shot him down in the road like a dog. Barker had marked the name of the man who had done this deed and it was on his list of those with whom he would one day have a reckoning.
You could say any number of harsh things about old man Barker and his sons. They were shiftless, troublesome, dishonest, violent and often operating on the wrong side of the law. One thing which nobody could deny was that they loved each other. The old man loved his boys, they loved him and all the brothers were tolerable fond of each other as well. When Robert Barker had received word of what had happened at his father’s house, he rode at a furious speed from Hutchinson and when he entered that house and found the corpses of his father and two of his brothers; he wept like a baby. When he had finished, he dried his eyes and swore bloody vengeance on the man who had killed both his father, youngest brother and best friend.