Free Webb's Posse by Ralph Cotton Page A

Lieutenant Goff snapped impatiently, cutting Teasdale off. “For God sakes! Can’t anyone simply follow an order so we can get this detail finished? It’s hotter than a boiling pot out here. Do as I say.”
    â€œYes, sir, Lieutenant,” Sergeant Lawrence Teasdale said, his eyes still scanning the ridges, searching the black holes of shade among the jagged rocks. “Corporal Burnes…Trooper Frieze: up front on the double!”
    â€œSpeed this up, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Goff said. “I’ll be waiting in the shade back here behind the gun wagon.” He turned his horse and moved it back a few feet along the trial as two sweaty bays fell out of the short single column and bolted forward.
    â€œYes, sir,” said Teasdale.
    As the two horses slid to a halt beside Sergeant Teasdale, he nodded toward the broken-down wagon thirty yards ahead. “Flank me, men, and be alert,” Teasdale said. “The lieutenant wants us to assist this man.” He nudged his horse forward, drawing his rifle from his saddle boot. The corporal and the trooper watched him check the rifle then cock it, keeping his thumb across the hammer. “Draw yours as well, men,” Teasdale said quietly. “The lieutenant doesn’t think this is anything to be concerned about.”
    â€œUh-oh,” said the corporal, tossing a quick glance along the ridgeline. Both he and Trooper Frieze immediately snatched up their rifles and cocked them.“Any time the lieutenant ain’t concerned,
I am
,” Burnes commented. “Does this smell like the makings of an ambush to you, Sergeant?”
    â€œNot only smells like one…I think it’s going to taste like one any minute,” Teasdale replied. “Stay sharp, Corporal. You too, Frieze.” He nudged his horse closer to the man on the ground beside the wagon.
    At twenty feet back, Sergeant Lawrence Teasdale stopped his horse between Burnes and Frieze, then stepped his horse a few feet ahead of them and sat staring down at the wagon driver. “What’s the matter, Sergeant?” said the wagon driver, his fingertips blackened by axle grease. “I don’t smell that bad, do I? Come on over here. I can use some muscle to shoulder this wheel on.” He nodded past Teasdale toward the gun wagon and the eight mounted soldiers sitting alongside it. “Would that be a Gatling rifle I see under that tarpaulin? If it is, you have little cause to fear anything on foot or hoof out here.”
    â€œIndeed, it is a Gatling gun,” said Teasdale, stepping his horse forward another slow step while looking all along the snaking trail before him. “And it would be a mistake to misinterpret my caution for fear of anything…on foot or hoof.”
    â€œNo offense intended, Sergeant,” said the wagoner. He raised his drooping hat, ran his shirtsleeve across his forehead, then lowered the hat back into place.
    â€œNone taken, sir,” said Sergeant Teasdale. Yet as his eyes darted quickly to the high ridgeline then fell back upon the wagoner, Teasdale raise his cocked rifle and leveled it. “I saw that, you bloody bastard!” The cocked rifle bucked in Teasdale’s hand. The wagoner flew backward as his grease-stained hand raised a pistol from his lap.
    â€œHe signaled somebody!” Corporal Burnes shouted back at the short column of men. “Take cover!”
    His words were partly drowned out by the pounding of rifle fire from the rocks above them. Looking back, Trooper Frieze saw the lieutenant spring up into his saddle then melt down the horse’s side as a bullet punched its way through his forehead. “Holy saints above!” Frieze bellowed. “We’re in for it now!”

Chapter 6

    â€œThat hateful sonsabitch!” Goose Peltry yelled, standing up as his men opened fire on the troopers below. “He shot Otis Hirsh before Hirsh could bat an eye!” Goose jerked up his