Chapter Selection: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

7.

As stealthily as I could, I made my way closer to the action. All the years of hunting everything from rabbits to antelope held me in good stead and I, eventually, found myself no more than twenty yards from the men that were shooting at Munroe and Cody and I had them all in view. There were six in all and they were well armed with repeating rifles similar to our own. Each and every one of them had their backs to me and was concentrating so much on their targets that they did not have any idea I was right behind them.

I rested a moment then placed my Winchester .44 WCF snugly into my shoulder. I had done this a thousand times or more before but I had never had another human being in my sights. It was a sober experience but one that I knew I had to follow through with. There was no alternative. Slowly, I drew a bead on one of the men. He was a tall man and had positioned himself right on the left hand side of the group. Remembering that I had placed a round in the breech, I cocked the hammed and took careful aim. Then I held my breath and gently squeezed the trigger.

The heave .44 calibre round hit him in the back of the head and threw his upper body forward as his brains sprayed out before him. He was dead before he rolled on to the ground. Now I was working on automatic as I levered another round into the breech and shot the next fellow in the middle of his back. The others turned to face me and loosed off a volley in my direction but I threw myself to one side just as their bullets zinged into the undergrowth and trees behind me. Munroe and Cody took full advantage of this play and laid down a withering barrage of shots. One of the shooters was hit in the neck and another took a round in the upper shoulder. This action took the fight out of them and they ran leaving behind their dead comrades. I emptied my Winchester in their general direction but didn't hit another one of them. A moment later I heard the sound of galloping hooves and they were gone. The skirmish was over and we had won the day.

But not without having to pay a terrible price.

Oregon Bill Munroe, my best friend, had been shot high in the inner thigh and he was loosing a tremendous amount of blood. Cody had tied a tourniquet tightly around the bloody wound but it had done little to stem the tide. He was as white as a sheet and looked like a small boy; his tear filled eyes pleading in their look. I remember to this day the terrible shock I felt at seeing my old friend this way. I felt sick to the stomach and empty deep inside.

As I joined them, Cody was breathing hard after the exertion of the fight and Munroe was leaning against the bullet riddled deadfall that had served them so well as a barricade. No more was he the brash and straight talking man he had been. He knew he was dying and so did we. No words were spoken between any of us during the final few minutes of his life. No real words at least. Words of comfort were muttered in the hope that they would hold him until he passed over. With one final effort, he looked to the sky and murmured, "Nice day, ain't it?" And then he was gone.

Cody tried to console me but I was reeling with anger. It just wasn't meant to be this way. Munroe hadn't been much older than me and now he was dead. I thumped the ground in frustration - I wanted to kill the bastard that had done my friend in all over again. Buffalo Bill grabbed my arms and shouted loud at me in an attempt to calm me down. It worked somewhat, as I took in deep gulp of the still acrid smelling air.
Then, I noticed Cody looking at something directly over my right shoulder.
"Well, I'll be damned…" he exclaimed as I turned to face what he was looking at.
There, crawling out from some rough cover was one of the desperadoes that had ambushed Munroe and Cody. He was bleeding from the side of his body and the top of his head, but he was alive. And a live one was just what we were wanting!
We ran over to the wounded man and warned him not to even think about going for his revolver; we both drew ours at the same time just in case he decided not to heed our advice.

Upon reaching the man I was surprised to see that he was a Mexican.
"Bill, he's a God-damn greaser!" I exclaimed as we looked down at him.
"Didn't you know?" asked Cody simply as he knelt down by the wounded fellow.
Buffalo Bill began chattering to the man in Spanish so I didn't understand what he was saying as I had not learned the language back then. After a minute or two, Bill looked up to me and said, "You ain't gonna believe this one, Poncho. It appears that our friend here and his pards are nothing more than a bunch o' white slave traders."
"White slave traders?" I asked incredulously. "What the hell are they?"
"Pissants that come up from the south, Mexico mainly, to kidnap men, women and children and then they take them usually by sea back down south to such places as Brazil and Argentina where the captives are sold into slavery to unscrupulous plantation owners. They're a left over from the old commancheroes. That's what happened to the women and children we're looking for. They're in South America now on a coffee plantation, Poncho.

Our friend here confessed all because he's dying an' he don't wanna do that with a guilty conscience."
Anger welled up inside me and I drew my short, sharp knife menacingly.
"All o' this has been fer nothing!" I stated angrily. "All o' this ridin' round and lookin' and ridin' some more. All o' this rain, wind, sun…all fer nothin'! Oregon Bill's death at the hands o' theses bastards…all fer nothin'! 'n what the hell was he doin' here right now anyhow?"

"You put that knife away, Poncho, an' I'll ask him." Replied Cody calmly. I did as he asked and re-sheathed my blade. The terrified Mexican was squirming about the floor as though he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Maybe he could see the anger and hurt in my eyes, but he knew that I intended to kill him right there and then. He may have believed he was dying but he didn't want to die a painful death at the point of my knife.
Buffalo Bill parlayed with him some more for a spell, then, when they were finished, he stood up and stretched his long legs.
"From what I can gather, he and the others were out here looking fer Red Deer. It was Red Deer that sold the women and children into slavery in the first place. The slave traders found out that old Red Deer ain't around anymore. He's lit out a skipped o'er the border into Canada. The slavers were making their way back to the coast when they came across us. There was no way round so they had to make a fight of it. It's that simple." He said flatly.

"Red Deer's slipped the country? Shit!" I snapped. "Then that means we can't even go after him and haul him in to Fort Lincoln to be jerked ta Jesus."
That's about the length of it, Poncho, yes. We have to come to terms with the fact that we have failed in our mission. It happens and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, son. We have to accept that. Win some, lose some."
"'Win some, lose some'? I've lost one o' my best friends in all o' this!"
"He won't be the last." Said Bill simply. Those words spoke volumes to me right there and then in that green clearing in the woods by the foothills of the great Black Hills in Wyoming.