The Journey from Hell

By Coy Roper

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The Journey From Hell

In 1877, two old friends, former members of Quantrell’s Raiders, meet again at a bank in Hell, a town in far west Texas. One is there to rob the bank, the other—the town’s sheriff—foils the robbery. In the pursuit that follows, the robber saves the sheriff after his horse falls, and the two of them become friends again.

They decide to head west and find a place where they can live in peace. On their way, they pick up others who need to find a sanctuary—a six-foot-six widowed preacher and his twelve-year-old daughter from Indiana, a twenty-one-year-old black musician/physician’s assistant from Boston who has come west to seek his fortune, a twenty-year-old Mexican girl who grew up as a cowhand on a ranch in Colorado, a six-month-old baby named Peter, and a Jersey cow named Pansy!

On their journey they experience adventures (and misadventures) with Indians and outlaws and others. Finally, they arrive at the town where they will settle—New Canaan, in New Mexico territory. Problems remain, but a final gunfight with the Hank Dandy gang gives them rest—and romance—at the end of their journey from Hell.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638444763

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The Journey from Hell

Coy Roper

Copyright © 2021 by Coy Roper

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Exodus

The Journey

The Conquest

Book 1

The Exodus

1

The Bank Job

Buck Brannon had an uneasy feeling that day in May when he and his two cousins, Brett and Cody Brannon, rode into Hell, Texas. Buck was thirty-two-years old, six feet tall, strongly built, and a capable gunfighter, but he could still feel something akin to opening-night jitters.

The name of the town was itself enough to give one concern. The first settlers had given it that name when they moved to this part of far west Texas, and they couldn’t find water, and there was hardly any grass for their cattle, and they burned up in summer and froze in winter, and the landscape consisted of nothing but flat, barren, dried-out range studded with prickly pears and graced occasionally with mesquite trees. Nevertheless, they stayed and somehow figured out how to make a living out of that almost-desert land. But first impressions stay with you. So they named the town Hell.

But that wasn’t the main reason for Buck’s unease. For one thing, he hadn’t done this sort of thing for ten years. It was 1877, and the last bank job he had pulled was in 1867 in Nebraska when he was a member of the Dandy gang. Not long after that, he quit the gang after a deadly gunfight in a Kansas town.

He had fled southwest to Texas, and there decided that he didn’t want anything more to do with killing, so he became a cowboy and found a job on the Bar-10 Ranch near Template. His name and face still appeared on wanted posters. But he hadn’t robbed anyone for ten years (as long as you don’t count taking money from dimwit Charlie in the Saturday night poker game in the saloon as stealing).

In addition, he had become kind of straitlaced in the intervening years. He had learned to enjoy living a law-abiding life and even served on juries in Template. And he found himself being repulsed by the criminal behavior he heard about and often voting guilty!

What was he doing here then? He asked himself that. The answer was not so simple. For one thing, he had a year or two ago decided that he had had his fill of working for others. He wanted his own place—maybe a small spread, a ranch, where he could rest after a life of conflict. But he didn’t have any money to buy a place, and it was unlikely that if he continued to work as a cowboy, he would ever accumulate that kind of cash. (And there weren’t enough dimwits for him to make enough money gambling.)

Consequently, when Brett and Cody rode into Template on a Saturday afternoon and interrupted him while he was practicing his fast draw and six-shooter accuracy at the edge of town—he had a reputation as one of the fastest, best shots in west Texas—and asked him to help them rob the bank in Hell—a town about ten miles away—he was sorely tempted. They tried to persuade him by saying that the bank there got a large deposit of cash on the second Friday of the month, so that the eastern land company that owned many of the local ranches could pay their workers, and the bank wasn’t carefully guarded…and they needed him: he had the experience they lacked.

He liked the two younger guys. They were twenty-four and twenty-two. They were Uncle Matthew’s children—he was his father’s younger brother—and had grown up on the farm next to his folks’ place in Kentucky. He remembered playing with them when they were little. Their dad had been a ne’er-do-well who ended up in prison. The boys couldn’t make a living on the farm, so they decided to follow in the footsteps of their cousin Buck.

Buck thought it over. He had spent a lot of time with his cousins growing up, and he enjoyed thinking about the games they used to play and how he used to wrestle them and carry them around on his back. Now they, like him, were looking for money to move further west and settle down for good. He finally said, Yes. After all, it would only be this one final job.

That’s why he found himself with the two others riding into Hell that Friday afternoon, May 11, 1877.

They found the bank, and, after making sure no one was looking, they pulled bandannas over their faces. They left Cody to hold the horses and guard the outside of the bank. Buck and Brett, after taking a moment to steady themselves, pulled their guns and burst through the door of the bank, shouting, Hands up, everyone! Get your hands up or get shot! All of you, get over here!

There were half a dozen customers in the bank. The appearance of the two masked men startled and scared them. They quickly obeyed, bunching up in the front corner of the bank as Brett held his gun on them. Buck threatened two tellers, and they came around and joined the customers with their hands raised.

Then Buck hurried around the corner of the tellers’ cages and saw the bank manager emerging from his office with a gun in his hand. Drop it! he said harshly, aiming at the manager’s head. He dropped it. Then Buck, by threatening him again, made the bank manager open the safe. He then made him lie down on the floor while he put the large bundle of cash in the safe into a bag he had with him. He backed out of the office, ready to head for the front door.

In the meantime, Brett had, after making sure the customers were scared and unresisting, found his way into the tellers’ cages and was filling up his bag with money out of the cash drawers. He was enjoying himself—maybe too much, because he took his eyes off his prisoners. Suddenly one of them drew a pistol he carried under his coat, aimed it at Brett, and shot him through the heart!

Buck, seeing what had happened, shot over the heads of the bunched customers, and they all dropped to the floor. The man with the gun started to get up—moving slowly and awkwardly because one of his legs didn’t work right—and aimed at Buck, but Buck was too quick. He covered the short distance to the gun-toting customer in three short steps, dropped his bag of cash, knocked the shooter’s gun down with one hand, and hit him across the face with his own gun. Only then did he notice that the guy was wearing a badge!

The lawman went down, but not before grabbing hold of Buck’s bandanna and pulling it off. His face showed surprise as he fell, and he said, You…you’re Buck Brannon! You sorry son-of-a—

Deadeye! Buck exclaimed as he saw the lawman’s face up close. Shut up! he added and hit him again. Then he picked up the lawman’s gun and flung it across the room.

At that moment, he heard gunfire from outside. He dashed out the front door. As he headed out, he heard the downed lawman shout, I’ll get you!

Outside he found Cody, kneeling behind a horse trough, engaged in a gunfight with three men across the street.

He dropped down beside Cody, and the younger man said, They heard the shots from inside and started for the bank. I had to shoot to keep them out!

All right, but we can’t stay here! They’ll be coming out of the bank after us! Let’s get on the horses and go!

Okay!

And that’s what they did—hurrying into the saddles of two of the horses Cody had been holding, and then running their steeds furiously down the street out of town, as half a dozen gunmen stood in the street shooting at them!

Their bullets seemed to miss the mark, and the two would-be bank robbers pulled up after a mile or so to catch their breath and rest their horses.

What about Brett? Cody asked.

I’m sorry. The sheriff was in there, and he shot him—dead. After a moment he went on, It was Deadeye.

Who?

Deadeye! Daniel Pierce. We used to ride together.

Brett’s dead? Cody asked. Buck nodded. Cody was silent for a moment. Then he wiped his eyes and spoke again. Did you get the money?

Buck paused, unwilling or unable to answer. Finally, he choked out, in a small voice, the words: No. That confounded Deadeye fouled it up!

They were quiet for another moment. Then Cody said, as he placed his right hand to his left side, Oh well. At least we’re still alive.

Only then did Buck see the blood oozing from a bullet hole in Cody’s side. They got you! he exclaimed.

Yeah. It’s…it’s nothing. I’ll be all right.

2

The Posse

But it wasn’t all right. Buck and Cody continued traveling west. At first, they galloped the horses. But the wound in Cody’s side began to bleed more profusely, and he felt weak and sick. He was about to fall off his running horse before Buck noticed and slowed down.

He looked at Cody—at the blood and the obvious signs of pain—and thought, He needs to stop. But we can’t. Aloud he said, Come on, old buddy. They’ll be coming after us.

Cody grunted his assent, and they continued, walking their horses, but Cody still swayed in his saddle, and his shirt and pants were drenched with blood. Finally, he slumped over the front of the saddle and probably would have fallen off if Buck hadn’t jumped off his horse to get hold of his injured cousin. He held him on the horse another hundred yards until they came to a stand of mesquite trees near the top of a steep hill.

As Cody, still on his horse, looked out over the terrain, he groaned. Buck, standing beside him, said, Over there is New Mexico territory. If we can make it there, they won’t follow us. Come on. He started to get back on his horse, but at that moment, Cody fell to the ground.

Buck hurried to him, discovered he was unconscious, and then pulled him away from the trail and propped him up with his back against a boulder at the edge of the mesquites. He pulled off his own shirt and tied it tightly around Cody’s midsection, hoping to stem the flow of blood. He sat beside him and added the pressure of his hand. The blood flow seemed to slow and finally stop. But Cody remained unconscious.

Buck stared down the trail they had just traveled. How long will it be before they come after us? he thought to himself. He was sure they would.

He was right. As soon as the outlaws left town, and the damage had been assessed—one crook dead, no money taken—Sheriff Woody Franklin—who had foiled the robbery—sent word to the denizens of the saloon and to all the other townspeople that he was forming a posse to go after the no-good criminals who had tried to rob their bank.

A crowd gathered in the street outside the saloon. Woody, a tall slim man with a carefully cultivated reddish-brown mustache and goatee who walked with a noticeable limp, took his place in front of them and exhorted, We’ve got a good town here, a peaceful town! We make our money and keep it and spend it! Then someone like this crook Buck Brannon—a criminal who used to ride with Quantrell and with the Dandy gang—comes to town and tries to kill us off and take our money! Are we going to let him get away with it?

The crowd responded with a loud collective No! No!

‘No’ is right! the sheriff answered. Let’s go after those thugs and bring them back and show them we don’t like for people to come in and rob our bank and shoot up our town! I’m forming a posse! Who’ll go with me?

Many shouted, I will! Eventually a dozen men were recruited. About half an hour later, they galloped out of town with the sheriff leading the charge.

They tracked the two bank robbers west. Buck saw them coming a half mile away. He shook Cody awake. Get up! They’re here! We’ve got to go! Cody opened his glazed eyes and groaned as Buck helped him back onto his horse.

The men in the posse saw the two from a distance. They shouted and spurred their horses to catch the crooks.

Buck and Cody galloped their horses away, but they stopped short when they came to a steep embankment that ran down at a sixty-degree angle. We can’t make it, Cody gasped.

We’ve got to! Buck replied. Come on! He drove his horse, slipping and sliding, down the embankment as he hung on for dear life. Cody groaned and followed