Northfield (11 page)

Bob almost slips.

“Hang on!” I yell to him. Suddenly I remember something else. “The telegraph wires!” I shout.

“No time!” Dingus yells back, and he’s right.

We were supposed to cut the lines, but now the whole damned state will be alerted.

“Hold on, Bob!” I cry.

“For God’s…sake…don’t…leave me!” He’s choking out them words like feeble sobs, crying, whimpering.

“I ain’t leaving you, Bob!”

My horse stumbles, and Bob’s whining more. “For God’s…sake…don’t…leave me.” I figure he’s in shock now, thinks he’s still on that damned boardwalk, trading shots with the bastard who killed his horse.

“Which way?” screams Charlie Pitts.

“Just ride, damn it!” Dingus answers. “Ride or get buried!”

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE
J
OHN
O
LESON

Nic and I had been share wee taste of
spritdryck—mycket liten
, not much, two, three swallows, no more—when shots began. We down in Bierman’s basement, Bierman being man who owned furniture company who had ask me to hang door. Odd. You think furniture company fellow could hang own door, but he hired me, and I am carpenter.

Nicolaus Gustavson, he new to this country, live in Millersburg. Swede, like me, he comes to better place, to start life new, see something better than in old country.

But he like strong drink. Like me. Maybe Nic like it better. I mean…
liked…
Nic, he dead now. Man killed him. Well, Nic not quite dead, but I told there is nothing to do but wait. So I wait. Wait for Nic to die.

He got shot this way. We hear gunshots when we sit on stairs to basement. Nic say something, start up stairs, but I tell him, no. This not right. Something wrong.

Maybe Nic had more drink than before I share
spritdryck.
He pull away from me. I crawl up steps after him. Beg him to stay down.

Nic tell me it some theater show. He has hear of it. I tell him, no. I speak all of this in old language. Nic, he not understand English much. His nephew and others in Millersburg tell me this because too much
spritdryck
Nic drink. Maybe so.

“Nic,” I plead to him. “This real.”

Mr. Manning, I see, fire big rifle. It boom. Mr. Manning, he no in theater company. Own hardware store. Mr. Ames, big government man, he run up beside Mr. Manning. I see that Mr. Manning has killed
hast
in front of bank. Other men, strangers in town, keep shooting.

“Nic…Nic! They rob bank.”

“Nej,”
Nic tell me. He wave me off. Call me
dumbom.

“Brottslings!”
I point at mounted men who thunder past.

“Get off the street,” shout one, “you sons-of-bitches!”

I almost soil myself.

“Feg stackare,”
Nic tell me, and he laugh.

I climb down stairs, cringing at whine of bullets. Men curse.
Feg stackare?
I no coward, but nor I
dumbom.
I screw open flask, have long drink.

How much time pass? I know not. Seem hours, but only minutes,
ja.
Nic yell again at me, still calling me
feg stackare, dumbom
, and I climb slowly steps, like cat. Nic, he
berusad.
Stinking drunk, like they say here. Not from my flask, though. He point again, laughing loudly. Now I see two men in long coats worn by cattlemen. I see them in streets, one near us, other toward corner of square. Another man, he cry out, hiding under stairs, throw his pistol into air, catch it with other arm. He shoot at window in hotel.

More curses. Dogs bark. Men gallop past us. Bullets whine. Feel hot.

“Nic!” I yell.

Then I see man, he crouch, he fire, he yell at Nic: “Get down, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Nic, he cannot understand, but I know it not his no good English. Two men dead.
Hast
dead. Guns. Shouts. Cursing. That language clear enough. No act this is. Get down! But, Nic, he drunk.

I see Nic laugh at highwayman. I see man’s cold eyes flame with anger. He cusses. He shoot Nic in head, and Nic, he fall down stairs, roll past me. For some reason, I look up, maybe to see if man, if he come to shoot me, too.

He see me. He yells: “Get back down, you son-of-a-bitch, or I’ll kill you, too!”

I come down. All way down. I bang on door to Bierman’s, but it locked. I bang and bang. And then I hear no more shots, and when I look up, Nic, he gone.

Slowly I climb stairs into streets. Men and boys, they point down Division Street, but that way I see nothing. I look around. Two men on street, dead.
Hast
dead. Some men run into bank. Mr. Manning and Mr. Ames, they walk slowly. Others run. To bank. To livery. To dead men.

“We need a posse!” someone yells.

“Get a telegraph off to Dundas. That’s where they’re headed!”

“They shot Alonzo Bunker!”

“I heard. How is he?”

“With the doctor now.”

“Somebody go fetch his wife!”

Wheeler boy, one studying to become
doktor
, he step out of hotel, holding big long rifle in arms. He yell at some boys standing over body of one of dead
brottsling.

“By God,” come cry from bank. “Joe Heywood…he’s been murdered!”

I remember Nic. Maybe I am drunk, too, no? No, I think it is just fear.

“Nic! Nicolaus Gustavson! Where are you?” I cry out for him in English, in Swedish. No answer.

Someone point toward Cannon River, by mill pond. “The Swede run off that way!” he yells.

“Tack,”
say I, and I hurry to river.

There, I find Nic. His head all bloody, and he try washing blood off his face. I cannot believe he dead not.

“Nic,” I tell him. I grab him by his arm, pull him from water’s edge. He look at me. He vomit.

I wrap his arm around my shoulder. Nic, he sob. I tell him he will be fine, that we must find
doktor
, and lead him to Norske Hotel. It where newcomers from old country stay often. Nic, he stayed there. I stayed there. By then, Nic, he asleep. Other men help me, they carry him to bed.
Doktor
look at me, look at Nic.

I wait.

Doktor
, he say Nic will die. “The bullet fractured his skull, pierced his brain. There is nothing I can do, nothing anyone can do.”

So now I sit by my friend, Nicolaus Gustavson.

I wait him to die.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
H
ENRY
M
ASON
W
HEELER

“Hey, boy, you stop that. Put that pistol down!”

Still in my stocking feet, I raced across Division Street, from the hotel to the body of the man I had killed. This pockmarked kid—I didn’t recognize him—held a big Colt’s revolver in his hand—a pistol dropped by one of the outlaws, I expect— aiming it at the dead man’s face, and I wasn’t about to have his body ruined so. As a medical student, I envisioned a much higher calling for this young desperado. And his friend lying up the street, also.

“I said…put it down!” The boy obeyed, started to keep the gun, but J.S. Allen wrenched it from his hand, and told the kid to show some respect.

“Man’s dead. He can’t hurt you now. And we might need this pistol in the inquest and trial of those murdering b’hoys.”

The kid took off running. I made sure he didn’t detour toward the other corpse.

“My word,” someone said, staring at my handiwork, “look at all that blood.”

Another: “Like a hawg killin’.”

The man stared at us with unseeing blue eyes, his curly, reddish hair matted in sweat and drying blood, one side of his linen duster soaked in blood. No gun belt, but I remembered one of his companions relieving him of his weaponry. A drummer, visiting from Faribault, bent over the dead man and began going through the pockets of his striped britches, under the pretense of learning the deceased man’s name, but I think he just wanted to touch a slain outlaw. The search revealed only a map, a battered Waltham no longer ticking, and 10¢. Not much to show for his life, I thought. A young man doomed to die an early death because of his outlaw ways. Fate had let me kill him.

“Still can’t believe a shoulder shot would kill that poor bastard,” someone else said.

“My bullet severed the subclavian artery,” I explained. “No way he could survive. He bled out in seconds.”

“Your shot?” The Faribault man looked up, sounding skeptical.

All you did was touch him
, I thought to myself with some vehemence and irritation.
You certainly didn’t kill him.
I patted the Smith carbine’s stock, pointed its barrel at the second-story window at the Dampier House.

Dr. Dampier crossed the street now, and he overheard this conversation, came forward, and patted my back, saying: “Brave lad, brave lad. That was some shooting, too.”

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound immodest.

Nor do I wish this to sound as brag, but I suspected these strangers were up to no good when they rode into town.

Northfield is home. Well, technically, I was born in New Hampshire but have lived twenty of my twenty-two years here. Father runs an apothecary shop on Division Street, and, last year, I was graduated from Carleton College here in town, then went off to Ann Arbor to study medicine at the University of Michigan. Having returned home between semesters, I found myself relaxing in front of Father’s store, boots off, whetting my appetite on soda crackers while reading the Rice County
Journal
with only passing interest.

Three strangers rode into town, tethering their mounts to the hitching post in front of the bank, then moved down the street and sat on some boxes in front of the mercantile. One produced a bottle, flask, something, and passed it amongst themselves. The first things I noticed were the quality of the horses, the fine saddles, out of place in a farming and milling town like this. The men did not look at home, either. They wore long dusters, buttoned for the moment, boots, spurs, broad hats. One sported an auburn mustache, a dark-skinned man had a thick mustache and Van Dyke, and the third man, tall, cocksure, wore a full beard, evenly cropped. He glanced often at the bank. The dusters, I thought, would be fine to hide sidearms, and I thought to myself—
these men bear watching.

From that moment, my eyes did not leave them for more than a few seconds.

A while later, I noticed two other men, also well mounted, coming down the street. They, too, donned long dusters, and, when the first men saw them, the bearded man said something, but the youngest of the trio—the one with the auburn mustache—jumped to his feet and headed for the bank door. The dark man shoved the flask into his pocket, and all three entered the bank, leaving the door open.

Yet not until later did I know with all certainty of their evil intent. The two riders swung off their mounts. One pretended to be adjusting the girth, while the other, puffing a homemade pipe, hurriedly slammed the door shut and stood blocking the entrance. Seconds later, J.S. Allen stepped into the scene.

When the pipe-smoking man rough-handled Mr. Allen, I leaned forward in my chair.

“Father,” I called inside, “something is happening!”

Then I saw the pipe-smoking man unbutton his duster and draw a huge revolver, cursing at Mr. Allen, who turned and fled, shouting: “Get your guns, boys, the bank’s being robbed!”

The men fired, although their shots at this time were aimed at the heavens, and I leaped from my seat. “Robbery!” I yelled. “Robbery!”

“Get inside, you sons-of-bitches!”

As if on command, three other riders galloped across the iron bridge, yelling like savage Indians, firing their guns this way and that. I leaped from my chair, into the street, still amazed at what I seemed to be witnessing. “They’re robbing the bank!” I yelled.

The men in front of the bank turned to me. “Get in,” one said, “or we’ll kill you!”

Now, since I turned fourteen I have been hunting, and am more than a passing shot. I knew I needed to get my hands on a rifle, but my own En-field hung above the door inside my house. Blocks away A bullet smashed into the column beside me, and I realized I’d never make it to my house. Where? Where?

Mr. Allen’s hardware store? Perhaps Mr. Manning’s? No chance. I’d have to cross the street, now filled with chaos, with galloping outlaws firing pistols, and over to Mill Square. I’d be dead before I got halfway there. Suddenly I remembered the old Army carbine Dr. Dampier had shown me at his hotel. He kept it, he said, and a sack of cartridges behind the counter in the lobby. So I raced to the hotel, hearing gunshots, hoofs, screams, and a booming voice: “Let him go!”

Well, if that man-killer was referring to me, I am grateful they let me go.

Inside, a stunned Dr. Dampier did not comprehend the situation.

“They’re robbing the bank!” I told him. “I need that rifle of yours. And the shells!”

“Son,” the kindly man said, “they’re just playacting. Part of some troupe coming through, performing at the Opera House….”

“I tell you they are robbing the bank, sir. Please!”

I imagine the bullet that shattered one of his windowpanes changed his mind, and he quickly retrieved the carbine.

“Cartridges!” I demanded. “And caps.”

He moved slowly, put two on the counter, then another. “I can’t find the danged sack,” he said, but handed me a tube of percussion caps.

“I’ll take these.” I raced to the front door, stepping outside, met instantly with a shot that sang past my left ear.

“Get back inside, you Yankee bastard! Stay inside, or I’ll blow your damned head off!”

Good advice, I thought, and retreated deeper into the Dampier House. What had I been thinking, stepping onto the streets like that? Upstairs! I bounded the steps three at a time, knowing that a perch on the second floor would provide good cover and a clear aim.

The weapon was an old Smith breechloader, .52 caliber, firing foil and paper cartridges with a percussion cap. Dr. Dampier had carried it with him during the War of the Rebellion. When I reached the second story, I charged into a room, opened a window, and took in the scene. Five men on the streets, all in dusters, shooting, cursing, screaming. A man raced across the street with his son and took cover inside Eldred’s Confectionary. Another man climbed out from the stairs leading to the basement offices of Bierman’s furniture store. Just stood there like a dolt, either drunk or in shock.

For a moment, I simply stared at the battlefield below, seeking out a target, but these men moved rapidly. Elias Stacy, I believe, drew first blood when he charged like a lancer, lifted a shotgun, and blew the pipe-smoking man from his saddle.

The outlaw landed on the boardwalk, yelling something, and Elias pivoted and beat a hasty retreat, diving behind the crates in front of the mercantile while a scraggly bearded fellow on a high-stepping horse galloped past and fired, splintering one of the boxes but missing young Stacy.

I fired twice, rushing my first shot, missing my second by inches at some passing rider. The third cartridge I dropped, and it broke on the floor, spilling powder on the hardwood. Needing more ammunition, I darted out of the room and met Dr. Dampier on the staircase. He handed me a flour sack, and I grabbed it and returned to my fortification, withdrawing another foil and paper cartridge, working it into the breech, capping the nipple, looking out the window, taking it all in again, still hard to fathom.

A man in a duster lays sprawled down Division Street. Men have left the bank. The streets are chaos. Gunsmoke. I hear dogs barking, the musketry of savage fight. It’s like no hunting trip I’ve ever been on.

A rider galloped past, cursing, snapping me from my state of shock, and I fired, missing, but scaring the hell out of him. And then I saw my chance. The pipe-smoking man, who had miraculously survived Elias Stacy’s shotgun charge, was back in his saddle. I took aim, but he bent over, and I cursed, holding my rifle steady. He adjusted his stirrup, and, when he straightened himself, shifting his revolver in his hand, I squeezed the trigger.

A good hunter knows when he has scored a hit, and I did not hesitate, swinging down to reload and recap the Smith. When I looked out again, the pipe-smoking man, who had long ago spit out his pipe, was down, being attended by another outlaw, but I had no clear shot at him. Another outlaw I spied, by the corner stairs, aiming his pistol, trying to get a clear shot at Mr. Manning. I chose him for my next target, drew a bead, let out my breath, fired again.

This time, foolishly, I tried to watch, rather than take cover and reload. This mistake almost got me killed, for, amazingly, my bullet slammed into the outlaw’s right arm, but he tossed his revolver in the air, caught it with his left hand, whirled— somehow must have spotted me in the window— and let loose with a shot. It shattered a pane, inches from my head.

I ducked, reloading, cursing my stupidity.

When I chanced another look outside, I found the man I had wounded in the right arm, screaming something, still by the stairs. Another man, the one who had been adjusting the saddle girth, mounted his horse. I’d kill him next.

Some people, I believe, are blessed with the armor of the Lord. I fired. Mr. Manning fired. Others shot at this scoundrel. The man’s hat flew off, and I am certain my shot tore his saddle horn asunder, while yet another clipped one of his reins. Previously the man had been wounded in the leg, but he did not act like a suffering soul. No, he drew a lethal Bowie knife with one hand, sliced the other rein with the blade, then kneed and spurred his brave horse to his wounded comrade.

I am a man who admires courage, and this man showed more grit than anyone I have ever seen. He got his horse to stop and wheel at the precise moment it reached the stairs. I fired again, but still God’s armor protected this brigand, and, with amazement, I watched him grab the wounded man’s gun belt and lift him into the saddle behind him. Then, without benefit of reins or a saddle horn, riders and steed exploded down Division Street, toward Dundas.

Like that, it was over.

I grabbed the sack of ammunition in one hand, the Smith in the other, and hurried downstairs, outside.

“Grosser Gottl”
a gray-haired German lady cried out. She stood in front of Gress’s shoe store, where she broke out sobbing, pointing, not at the dead men, but at the horse Mr. Manning had killed.

I remained standing guard over the body of the young outlaw I had felled when I heard news that Alonzo Bunker, the teller, had been shot and was being treated by a doctor. Then someone yelled inside the bank that Joe Heywood, acting cashier, had been murdered.

The street became a frenzy of activity once again. Men and boys stepped forward with their weapons, from pocket pistols and fowling pieces to rocks and wooden toys. I noticed one man, a coward to be sure, climb sheepishly out of the ice house, his hair and clothes covered with sawdust and mud, and attempt to sneak away toward the river. A mother rushed her child away from the carnage. Dogs came from all directions, sniffing at the corpses.

Conversations broke out about an inquest, about the dead men, who they might be, about the robbers who had escaped. Others still stood around as if dazed, confused, unable to understand what had happened—how long ago had it started? I checked my watch. Not even ten minutes ago.

Others cried.

“We’ll put the bodies of these vermin in the granary for now,” one man said.

Ira Summer, who had opened his photography studio in town shortly after the war, said: “Per-haps it might be best to photograph these two specimens before too long.”

Naturally there were rumors, flying as wild as some of those gunshots only minutes earlier.

The Swede that had been shot had recognized one of the robbers….

The outlaws were riding down Division Street to kill Governor Ames’s family in revenge. (This got Mr. Ames racing down the street to the huge mansion he shared with his family and parents.)

The James-Younger Gang was behind this. (That struck me as pure poppycock…for the time being.)

“We need a damned posse!” Mr. Allen shouted. “Get a wire to Dundas. Maybe we can stop them!”

“How much money did they get?” another voice asked.

“Damned little,” banker Frank Wilcox answered in a cracking voice as he was helped outside. “Joe wouldn’t open the safe.”