One Bloody Day - The Adventures of Cal McCann

By Robert Kammen

Cal McCann didn't have that much of a past coming onto his twentieth birthday, but what he'd done over this long summer had drifted back to haunt the young waddy. His first mistake had been to lay over at Rawlins for a boisterous weekend after helping hold up the Citizens Bank of Wahsatch, a Mormon settlement lying just across the border in Utah. Another glaring miscue, McCann's encounter with a woman of pleasure, had been just pure and simple youthful ignorance, but had put U.S. Marshal Homer Risdale on his trail: Selma Higgins had turned out to be the steady girlfriend of the Rawlins town marshal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Longhorn Publishing
• Release date: May 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227232205

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Cal McCann didn’t have that much of a past coming onto his twentieth birthday, but what he’d done over this long summer had drifted back to haunt the young waddy. His first mistake had been to lay over at Rawlins for a boisterous weekend after helping hold up the Citizens Bank of Wahsatch, a Mormon settlement lying just across the border in Utah. Another glaring miscue, McCann’s encounter with a woman of pleasure, had been just pure and simple youthful ignorance, but had put U.S. Marshal Homer Risdale on his trail: Selma Higgins had turned out to be the steady girlfriend of the Rawlins town marshal. The upshot of it all was that Cal McCann got arrested and a couple of days later Marshal Risdale came a’calling, with their conversation going pretty much like this:

MARSHAL RISDALE: You were identified as being one of those who held up the Citizens Bank of Wahsatch!

CAL MCCANN: That’s a bald-faced lie!

MARSHAL RISDALE: Then, how do you account for this prosperity?

CAL MCCANN: Sold some mustangs to the Army.

MARSHAL RISDALE: I hate liars and thieves! You happen to be both, McCann. So you’ll either cooperate or stretch rope—because that clerk who was shot cashed in his chips!

CAL MCCANN: But all I done was hold the horses.

MARSHAL RISDALE: All Judas did was accept thirty pieces of silver.

CAL MCCANN: Seems strange you can identify me and none of the others.

MARSHAL RISDALE: The others weren’t riding a CY horse. It would please me immensely having you testify against Reese Tulago in territorial court.

CAL MCCANN: It pleases me immensely telling you to go to Hades!

MARSHAL RISDALE: Then, you ignorant pup, you’ll hang!

CAL MCCANN: Reese Tulago wasn’t there, just his gang. But Tulago planned it, though, according to the others.

MARSHAL RISDALE: I don’t care about that bunch, only Reese Tulago.

CAL MCCANN: What kind of deal are we talking about?

MARSHAL RISDALE: Not getting stretched for certain, and maybe a reduced sentence.

CAL MCCANN: Reckon a sure drop to Hades is mighty permanent.

MARSHAL RISDALE: Here’s the way of it!

CHAPTER TWO

Elk Tooth Creek was just another backwater clinging to a stretch of prairie in north-central Wyoming with some business places scattered along the only dirt street and lanes running back to clapboard or log houses. A fan-tailed windmill creaking in the sultry breeze towered over a black-smith shop. There were some pole corrals and outhouses, the one livery stable, while distantly the snowcapped peaks of the Big Horns poked through wispy gray clouds starting to disperse as the day warmed into the low nineties.

Back a few years, the summer of 1867, surveyors working for the Union Pacific Railroad came through in their search for a westward passage over the Rockies and the town experienced a boom, only to have the railroad settle for a more southern route. Though a lot of people left, Elk Tooth Creek held on, mainly owing its existence to ranchers or nesters coming in to buy supplies, or the few travelers.

Once in a while men of dubious character would ride over from an outlaw hangout known throughout the territory as Hole In The Wall, a notch like a rifle sight in a fifty-mile sandstone ridge rearing out of the Wyoming grassland. They’d drink their fill at the only saloon, Petey Lange’s Saratoga Bar, and leave within a day or two so’s not to wear out their welcome. The townspeople liked to brag that one of these outlaws, Reese Tulago, grew up on a nearby ranch. And though Tulago hadn’t been back since he’d killed his first man down at Lander a few years ago, he was spoken of far more respectfully than were a bunch of waddies who’d gotten to calling themselves the Gunsels of Elk Tooth Creek.

The gunsels were more brag than fact, and hell raisers, according to the local pastor, along with being the reason the entire populace, twenty-nine hardy souls, were congregated around a baseball field situated northward about a mile and shadowed below a high sandstone butte, with others there too, some ranchers and their hired hands, and a drummer passing out free samples of Hamlin’s Wizard Oil.

Out on the rough dirt mound Cal McCann glared some sixty feet at a man of equal age yielding a club hewed out of oak. Gripped in McCann’s callused right hand was a horsehide orb beginning to turn lopsided from the pounding it had taken. His expression was a grim futility, the anger and frustration in him building at the way the opposing batsmen, a bunch of cowpunchers who worked at ranches further north in the Powder River Basin, had been whacking the Hades out of his pitches.

The field was nothing more than a section of prairie marked by uneven chalk lines and littered with sagebrush and cacti. There was only one out in the third inning, with runners dancing away from the bases, gunnysacks filled with buffalo chips. But this was no social Sunday afternoon game either, because three kegs of Grain Belt beef and five quarts of prime whiskey would go to the winning team, plus there were a lot of side bets placed on McCann’s team by most of those edging closer to the chalk line while casting lynching looks at their sore-armed pitcher.

Hellfire, it ain’t my fault, McCann complained silently. Swiping with the back of his gloved hand at his sweaty brow McCann’s thoughts swung from all the errors his fielders had made to the crowd. It could be that some of Reese Tulago’s gang had showed up for the game, or even Tulago himself. After being released from jail over to Rawlins and coming back here, McCann had dropped a word or two over at the Saratoga Bar about his part in that bank robbery and of his intentions to testify against Reese Tulago in exchange for clemency from the territorial governor.

This was the way Marshal Homer Risdale had wanted him to say it since both of them knew that in Elk Tooth Creek lived those who sympathized with the criminal element. As for Cal McCann, a lot of locals still refused to believe that a gunsel had enough grit to ride with Reese Tulago, much less be involved in a bank robbery. But the money McCann had flashed had spoken louder than words.

The game came about when, shortly after McCann’s return, a cowpoke from the KayCee Ranch up near Buffalo chanced into the saloon, and after spotting the money being free-wheeled about by McCann, challenged the gunsels headquartered there to a winner-take-all contest.

From under his dusty round-brimmed hat McCann’s squinting eyes climbed worriedly to the butte rim to search along it for any sign of movement. He felt naked on this slab of ground, especially without the Smith & Wesson at his right hip. Although that U.S. marshal was supposed to be in the immediate vicinity, McCann knew that wouldn’t help him if a rifleman swung down on him from atop that butte. But what difference did it make, he mused bitterly, whether hot lead done him in, or a noose.

No sense looking up a dead horse’s butt, he muttered dryly, and turned to check the positions of his teammates. They were dressed, as McCann was, in the working garb of cowhands, though some had shucked their high-heeled boots, and with only his catcher, squat, ruddy-faced Toby Wheeler, wearing leather gloves to help ease the sudden sting of McCann’s swift offerings. McCann’s hair was a deeper shade of red than that of brother Shiloh crouched near first base, with brother, Ben, out in left, and the yonker, Wiley, playing far too deep in right field. Freckles sprinkled the faces of his brothers shining with excitement of the game. As he waved for Wiley to move in a few feet, a leather-lunged rooter shouted, Quit stalling, McCann, and throw the damned ball!

With his fingers finding the seams of the baseball, McCann glared at the batter, a big, rangy cowhand with a shock of coal-black hair, and McCann knew the opposing team had brought in a ringer from Sheridan; Chandler by name, he recalled. The semipro team Chandler played for up at Sheridan had fancy uniforms with knicker socks and genuine cowhide baseball gloves. Damned sissies, came his muttered response to that.

A gust of wind sent dust skittering across the infield as McCann began windmilling his arms over his head then he cranked up his left boot to twist his body sideways on the wooden slab and into an awkward crane position before launching the ball plate ward. The batter just stood there jeering at the ball splitting the heart of the strike zone and whacking into catcher Wheeler’s cupped hands, who grimaced some.

Ball three! barked out the umpire standing behind the pitcher’s mound.

Ball? Livid with rage, McCann spun around to glare in disbelief into Turk Oldham’s watery blue eyes. 

The town drunk and sometimes handyman, Oldham’s queasy smile barely poked through the mangy gray beard as he weaved sideways. He wore baggy pants coming down over scuffed work shoes and held up by faded blue suspenders riding up over a dirty plaid shirt, and a derby hat he’d come across in a trash barrel. Now, Cal, like I done been a’tellin’ you . . . beyond a dozen feet or so things get fuzzy. You know I'm doin’ my level best.

Which ain’t good enough! Call any more balls against me and you can forget about gettin’ any whiskey. A hand clamped down upon McCann’s left shoulder, and turning that way, had his catcher hand him the ball.

You’ve got to throw the curve ball, insisted Toby Wheeler, who’d read about this newfangled pitch in an eastern sporting magazine.

Trying to throw that curve, Toby, is why my arm is sore. I tell you, that pitch defies the laws of nature. Ain’t nothin’ supposed to bend like that.

Maybe so, Cal, but your fastball is really slowing down. Just try that curve one more time. ‘Cause there’s nothin’ worse than losin’ to this mangy KayCee bunch.

Hey, Pretty Boy McCann, how’s about lettin’ me see that fastball again, the batsman shouted leeringly.

Tugging at his hat, McCann snarled, I’ll pretty boy you aside the head! Then McCann set himself on the mound as his catcher shambled back to crouch behind the plate.

McCann spun the ball around in his right hand while glaring in at the batter and trying not to hear the taunts and cat calls coming from other members of the opposing team clustered around a bench down the first-base line. By nature, Cal McCann was impulsive, quick to anger, someone who’d never let a slight pass, though he was no bully. Forgotten from the moment were Reese Tulago and the trouble McCann had gotten himself into. To make the ball curve, a trick that eluded him while working out during the past week, one had simply to twist his wrist down upon releasing the ball aimed directly at the batter’s shoulder facing the mound, and when the leather orb came within a foot or two of the batter it was supposed to dip down and curve over home plate. But, angered by the batsman, McCann had other notions.

Dust-biting time, he muttered as he pumped into his windup. His teeth grinding together, facial and body muscles going taut, he whipped his arm forward, with the unleashed baseball heading directly for the leering batter’s head.

The batsman, crouched beside the plate, suddenly realized the pitcher’s angry intentions. He froze for a split second, with his eyes bulging at the onrushing ball. Then his body went one way, the bat another, while the baseball bent sharply to pass over the plate before bumping into Toby Wheeler’s disbelieving hands.

Strike! the umpire cried out.

It . . . it done curved! yelled an exultant Toby Wheeler.

Out on the mound, Cal McCann punched clenched fists skyward and shouted, Kiyeee, I done defied the laws of nature!

Those supporting the gunsels began yelling encouragement, cheering, with at least three of them pulling out their handguns and punching holes in the steely-blue sky. And then, as if this were some kind of signal, several rifles opened up spouting blue flame and dusting the infield with steel-jacketed slugs. The bullets striking Cal McCann seemed to impale him where he stood on the mound, jerking his arms and legs about before he toppled backward and landed at the feet of umpire Turk Oldham, who suddenly sagged and fell as an errant bullet took him in the chest.

Spectators lining the field either flopped to the ground or sought shelter behind wagons and buggies. Saddle horses strung along a picket line tore loose and galloped away from the reverberating crackle of rifle fire. A grulla harnessed to a buggy decorated with side curtains and fancy scrollwork reared and lashed out with its forelegs at the man holding its bridle, and with its eyes fear-crazed. Breaking free, the horse bolted after others sending up a trailing dust cloud. The horse had gone about a hundred yards when the buggy struck a rock pile and seemed to come apart as it cartwheeled over, but the grulla never broke stride in its townward flight.

Because of the echoes of gunfire still ringing in their ears, it took a few moments for those gathered around the field and on it to realize the ambushers had stopped shooting. Cautiously they moved away from shelter and onto the field, only to pull up short at the distant rumble of thunder coming from a storm cloud with its black underbelly rain-heavy. By common accord their eyes swung to rimrock where puffs of gunpowder could still be seen, but thinning out now, and being carried away by the wind. The women and children had hung back, while the men were still gun-shy and shocked at what had happened. They came on though, as though did the KayCee ballplayers, the other gunsels.

Now breaking in from right field at a run was Wiley McCann. He raced into the infield, to slow down upon reaching the mound, to stop and stare down at the bloodied body of his brother Cal. The others had stopped too, hoping that Wiley would be able to tell them his brother was still alive. But the yonker, Wiley, knew without coming closer to search for a heartbeat that murder had been done and tears began staining his ashen face.

When Shiloh McCann came on others did too, and then he slid his arm around Wiley’s shoulders and drew him close. Shiloh managed to hold back what he felt, but flinting his eyes was anger that cried out for vengeance. This was Reese Tulago’s work! Why? Why did Cal have to get mixed up with that bunch? And where in hell were that U.S. marshal and his two deputies?