An Ole Hussar by Don Money

Orvis Wedge’s hawk-shaped face glanced warily around The Silver Spur saloon before he began speaking to his two brothers. “It’ll be easy pickings, boys. Who needs to rob banks when those two Germans roll out of town every week in their wagons flush with money.”

The Wedge brothers had eked out their ill-gotten lot in life in Texas, mostly taking for themselves what belonged to others. A bank robbery had cost the family the life of the youngest brother, Harris, in Amarillo. The results of it had sent the remaining gang of brothers fleeing for sanctuary in the Colorado Territory.

“Are you still talking about holding up the beer man and his son?” Clive Wedge, oldest of the brothers, chimed in. “Your last damn plan didn’t work out for the better. Now did it, Orvis?”

“Wasn’t my fault them Rangers got lucky. This here idea, it’s a sure thing. Ole Rudolff brews up those beer kegs out at his place at Saledo Creek. Then once a week, he and his son, Wolfgang, haul two loaded down wagons full of John Barleycorn into town and sell them at all the saloons through Silverton.”

Clint Wedge, short in stature and shorter in temper, nodded in agreement. “This is an easy buck. I hear they have hundreds of dollars of cash every trip. Them two won’t even see it coming. No danger, just ripe for the takin’.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Orvis said. “All we got to do is bushwhack ’em out at Mills Bridge as they ride back home. Neither one of them go heeled. Kill ’em, take the money, and skin out for Denver.”

Clive leaned in, drawing his brothers closer with the movement. “All right, we do this and it goes no further than the three of us. I ain’t getting my neck stretched because one of y’all went and ran his mouth to a saloon girl. Both of you tend to lower your pants and get loose about the lip.”

“What you trying to say?” Clint set his glass on the table with a bang, a storm brewing in his eyes. “You think one of us talked in Amarillo before the hold-up. Just speak your piece, big brother.”

“Nobody talked,” Orvis sensed the fight between his brothers coming. “We going to do this or what?”

Clint looked away from Clive and nodded.

Clive, unwilling to let the argument go so easily, added. “Sure, but remember what I said. Keep your mouths closed.”

Having the approval of his brothers, Orvis set it all in motion. “Next Saturday, as they head home.”

—

The three brothers hid among the rocks and scrub brush along the approach to Mills Bridge, having arrived an hour earlier to set up the ambush before the beer men would be making their way home.

When they had arrived, Orvis laid out the plan. “Me and Clive will wait on this side of the road behind these rocks. Clint, you’ll be across the road just a little further down hiding in that mess of brush.”

Clint interrupted his brother. “Fine by me. I’d rather not be with him.” He nodded toward Clive even though it was clear who he meant by his words. The two brothers had not gotten fully past their exchange that occurred when they planned out the robbery at the saloon. “I’ll just be over there telling the scorpions about how Clive don’t trust his own kin.”

Clive, not one to back down, countered his brother’s insult. “The Good Book says in Proverbs, ‘He who guards his mouth preserves his life, but he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.’”

“Sorry that me and Orvis aren’t as pious as you are, and Harris was. We just embraced the crooked path—ladies and sinning, drinking and gambling,” Clint spat. “You pretend to be a holy man, but here you are sitting with us, as you always have, along this dirt road to take what isn’t ours.”

Clive’s right hand drifted toward his holster, but Orvis interjected. “Now’s not the time. Both of you is brothers. Act like it. Clint, get on across the road with that shotgun and in position. We’ll let the first wagon roll by and stop the second. You stop the first one when it gets to the bridge.”

The men got in position for what might be a long wait under the hot sun. Orvis thought to himself that after this holdup, the brothers needed to go their own way for a little while before the bad blood that was building spilled out.

A half hour later, a single wagon came into view. Clive whispered to Orvis who was crouched next to him, “There’s only one wagon with the younger one. Where’s the old man?”

Down the road, Clint rose slightly from behind the brush and shrugged his shoulders, confused as he took in the lone wagon also. The wagon passed by the first outlaws and neared the bridge with no sign of a second wagon.

Orvis raised his 1866 Winchester Rifle and drew a bead on Wolfgang. “I’ll wing him and then we can find out what is going on before we finish him off.”

The bullet caught Wolfgang in the right shoulder and sent him careening off of the wagon. He hit the ground hard but still managed to stagger quickly to his feet and run toward the bridge. Clint, unaware that the plan had changed, jumped up and opened fire with both barrels from his shotgun on the ambushed man, peppering him with buckshot. Wolfgang crumpled back to the ground, a bloody mess.

“Dammit, Clint,” Clive yelled. “You’re so damn trigger happy. We were just shooting to wound him so he would talk. You done went and killed him. Get the money bag from his wagon.”

Clint sprinted to the wagon and after a minute of searching called back. “No money here, no bag, no nothing. It’s just an empty wagon.”

Orvis walked to where Wolfgang had crashed onto the ground. “He’s still breathing,” he called to his brothers. Kneeling down, Orvis shook the dying man’s shoulders trying to coax information out of him before he bled out. “Where’s the money?”

Wolfgang coughed and blood flew from his mouth. “Don’t have any… Second wagon load wasn’t ready. Pops is taking it tomorrow and collecting all the payments then….”

Anger brewed on Clive’s face. “I should have known better than to trust any plan you came up with. This was a waste. We are going to have to cut and run with nothing to show for it.”

Clint interjected. “Maybe not. We can find out where the old man keeps the money at their place. It ain’t more than a mile away. We can still ride down there and take what they have stashed there. I’ll make him talk.” Clint patted the handle of the knife sheathed on his belt, and a dark twisted smile slithered across his face.

Orvis latched on to the idea as a way to salvage the mess this robbery had turned into. Wolfgang’s eyes fluttered a few times and then closed. Orvis gave his body a shake. “Where do y’all keep your money put up?” No answer, but the man’s eyes opened. “Where is the old man at right now?”

A bloody smile spread across Wolfgang’s face, and he coughed again. “I’m sure he heard your shots. I expect he will be along shortly to rectify things… God have mercy on your souls when he shows up.”

“That old man?” Clint scoffed, “What’s he going to do, brew us up a good beer?”

“Wasn’t always a peaceful man,” Wolfgang sputtered. “Once fought with the Georgia Hussars in the war… Kennesaw Mountain… Lotta Yanks fell to his bullets and saber….” His voice trailed off as he crossed over through the veil.

Orvis looked at Clive. “Hussar? What in the hell even is that? And why do I care if he climbed some damn mountain?”

“The Hussars were horse soldiers,” Clive answered. “And he didn’t climb a mountain. He fought a battle at one. And you might outta care because the Georgia Hussars handed Sherman’s forces marching through the South one of their only truly tactical defeats at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Stories of the Hussars made tell that the men were demons on horseback.”

Clint laughed, not one to believe there was anyone tougher than himself out there. “Beer man, horse soldier. Makes no damn difference to me. I’ll kill him and take his money either way.”

The sound of hooves thundered on the wooden bridge and the three brothers turned to see a brown and white mare with ole Rudolff atop charging across it with a rifle butted up against his shoulder. Before they could bring their guns to bear on the rider, a shot rang out and dropped Clive to the ground.

The horseman charged past, scattering the outlaws. Clint tumbled off the edge of the road into a small wash that ran alongside the road. Orvis grabbed Clive by the shoulders and pulled him the other direction behind the big rocks where they had first hid.

Rudolff wheeled his horse around and looked back at the body of his son lying dead on the dusty road. Orvis peeked around the edge of the rock and then stepped out to fire off a shot at the man’s back. The horse instinctively danced sideways upon hearing the commotion in the rocks behind its back. The shot from Orvis struck the stock of the beer man’s rifle and sent it shuddering from his grip.

Tapping his mount sharply with his heels, the rider and horse galloped down the road further away from the bridge before spinning around. Clint climbed back up on the road and watched as the rider faced off with the outlaws. Clive, bleeding from his wounded shoulder, came around from the side of the rock, pistol in hand, to stand on the side of the road.

The ole Hussar clicked at his horse and barreled back at his son’s killers. Clint brought his shotgun up, but it was too late as Rudolff dismounted while the horse was still in motion twenty feet in front of him. The smoothness at which the man had done this stopped Clint long enough for Rudolff to draw his Colt Dragoon Revolver. He fired off two rounds as he closed in on the man and dropped him dead.

Clive, who had also been caught momentarily in awe of the old man, raised his pistol and fired. The shot creased the German’s side, but quick as a rattler, he spun and shot Clive in the middle of the forehead, dead before he even hit the ground.

Orvis was in shock—in a matter of minutes he had watched both of his brothers shot dead by the old man. He recovered what wits he could and fired off two wild shots from his Navy Colt Revolver as he bolted for cover back to the rocks.  He sprinted for where his horse was tied up. Orvis slid his revolver back in the holster and climbed up on his horse. That horseman was a demon, and he intended to put many miles between himself and the carnage that had just played out.

Rudolff whistled for his horse and the well-trained mount came running. As Orvis spurred his horse up onto the road, he was shocked to see that the beer man had remounted his horse and was blocking his escape.

“It can all be over, you know. We’ve both lost people,” Orvis called out.

“I lost a good son. You lost two cowards,” the grizzled voice replied.

“You could have rode away.” Orvis went for his pistol, but it never cleared leather. A shot took him between the eyes.

An old war prayer tumbled from Rudolff’s lips, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me—” The words halted as sobs racked his body. The old Hussar had lost comrades in battle before, but never family.

Dismounting, he walked over to kneel by Wolfgang. “Guten nacht, mein Sohn.” 

Don Money was born and raised in rural Arkansas. He spent the majority of his youth exploring the woods around their family farm or with his face buried in a Western novel. After graduating high school he joined the United States Air Force and traveled the globe as a Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Weapons Defense Specialist. After ten years in the service, Don returned to his roots in Arkansas and now teaches Language Arts to sixth graders. He holds Masters and Bachelors degrees in Education from Arkansas State University. Don is an active member of the White County Creative Writers group and enjoys writing fiction across multiple genres. He has sixty short stories published in a variety of anthologies and magazines. Don resides in Beebe, Arkansas with his wife Sarah where they are the proud parents of five children.