I handed her two folded pieces of paper. One was addressed to Jasper Stewart, US Marshal in Santa Fe. The other was addressed to Ben Blue, Deputy US Marshal in Taos.
She looked at them and asked, “Will they come?”
“With bells on… and bring others.”
Chapter 5
I had breakfast ready and coffee on the boil when she woke up. The sun wasn’t awake yet, but from the color on some of those peaks, he’d be awake soon. I handed her a plate of beans and some biscuits leftover from last night, and then I poured her a cup of coffee. She was beginning to like it black, but she did favor a little sugar in it.
She sat in that chair with a blanket wrapped around her. She had her plate balanced on her knees and both hands holding that old tin cup, while she blew it and sipped it. Her hair was all tossed and ruffled, and her cheeks were pink like a white faced calf’s nose. I couldn’t help thinking… How can this little baby girl be so damned tough?
I was ready to go, and asked her if she was gonna be all right. And she said she would as long as she had Dog to watch out for her.
“If you leave, take him along and find him a good home.”
As I turned to put my foot in the stirrup, she ran the short distance between us and put her arms around my waist and said, “Please come back… both you and Father.”
Looking down at the top of her head, which only came to my ribs I told her, “If that’s an order then I reckon I’ll have to.”
***
When I reached the trail going up to the mine shack, I was a full day and a half early, and that’s what I wanted. They wouldn’t be expecting anyone, so chances were good they wouldn’t have a guard posted.
Riding about three quarters of the way up, I dismounted and tied Bud to a small branch. If things went wrong, he’d be able to break loose. Guns wouldn’t bother him, but if hunger or thirst got too bad he’d go.
Rifle in my left hand and the satchel containing the money and the jewels tied to my belt, I started up the rest of the way. Topping out at the shelf, I stepped sideways behind a good sized boulder and did a once over. One man was just leaving the mine tunnel, but I couldn’t see any of the others.
Pulling my Colt with my right hand, I pulled back the hammer and let her go. The man at the mine stopped, slipped, and scrambled back into the hole. Two rifles were showing from glassless windows.
“Cletus… Cain here! I’ve got the money and the jewels… Send Mister Silverman out on a saddled horse.”
“Bring the money up into the yard, and we’ll bring out the old man.”
“That ain’t how it works, Cletus boy… You’ll get your money, but you’ll get it on my terms… And my terms are, you do it my way, or there’ll be four fresh bloody scalps hanging over that door before I leave and yours will be the first I take.”
“There’s four of us and only one of you… You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Four of you and one of me just means I got you outnumbered… Just ask your friend that whispered in your ear… He knows me…. I came here with the idea that I’d probably die here, and I plan takin’ all of you with me.”
“You’re plumb crazy, man… you just hold on a minute.”
I didn’t even hold on for a single second. I put a .44 round into one of those inch thick planks the shack was made of. That piece of lead ripped through the dried and weathered pine sending slivers of wood in all directions. Before the yelling started I had another cartridge in the chamber and my aim was about four feet to the right.
The yelling and cussing started but stopped with someone screaming in pain or fear. They knew I could stand there behind my boulder and shred that old structure if I wanted to.
“What’s your plan?” Came a call from inside.
“I’ll throw this bag of money and jewels out in the open… You have your man in the mine bring Mister Silverman out on a horse to the bag. He can open it to make sure what’s in it. Then the horse and Silverman come to me and your man goes to you… simple as that.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“In Creede… where you’ll never get your slimy hands on her… She’s got two telegraph messages to send if we don’t show up there by sundown tomorrow. One to US Marshal Stewart in Santa Fe, and the other to my good friend Deputy US Marshal Blue in Taos.”
He agreed and yelled the order to the man in the mine, who argued but went ahead and brought the old man out. The switch was made and Mr. Silverman rode to me. I motioned him on down the trail while I watched the man look in the bag and run for the shack. He ran hunched over like he was expecting a bullet in the middle of his back at any second.
Silverman was waiting for me when I got to the bottom. We moved off a ways, and I dismounted. “Silverman, I want you to take my horse and go to your daughter. Just give him his head and he’ll take you to the front door. She’s waiting at my place, and she’s mighty worried about you.”
“My dog might want to challenge you, but he’ll be alright if you’re ridin’ this horse… You may have to call her out because she has a hiding spot… She’ll come out when she knows it’s you. She’ll know what to do from there.”
“You will trade horses with me?” he seemed confused.
“No… If I come out of there, I’ll have your money and jewels. And I’ll be riding one of their horses… If I don’t come out… it’ll be like pulling your finger out of the ocean… no one’s gonna notice.”
“You best go now, so you can get there before dark.”
He offered to stay and help me, but I told him to GO. I wrapped his horse’s reins loosely around the horn, gave Bud a few strokes on the cheek and sent them on their way. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate his offer, but the princess needed to see him more than I needed to worry about him.
I didn’t waste any time getting back up that hill. They were hooting and laughing when I came down, so I pretty much expected them to be doing a little celebrating. But that wouldn’t last forever. My plan had been to circle around and come in from up above, where I could pick them off. But as I was about to leave the trail, I heard a horse coming and someone singing a poor version of Buffalo Gals.
Chapter 6
The last thing I wanted to do was warn the rest of them, so I slung my rifle over my shoulder by a strip of rawhide, freed my tomahawk, and waited. The clip clop grew closer, and the miserable music became more bawdy and profane. I felt that I should go ahead and kill this one for what he was doing to that song. But I wasn’t a murderer.
As he came around a switchback and headed downhill coming my way, I stepped out. When he saw me his song stopped in mid sour note. His hand went to his gun, but he didn’t pull it. He was in a fine mood and wanted to rub it in before he killed me.
A big yellow toothed grin spread across face and he said, “Looks like that old Jew skinned you outa your horse and left you afoot… You can’t trust them people, you know.”
“No… I sent him on his way, so I could get his money back.”
“Here, I thought you was supposed to be crafty and tough.” He said as he pulled the stopper from a whiskey bottle. Taking the plug in his left hand, he started to move the bottle to his mouth. Realizing his mistake, he didn’t know which to drop to get at his gun. It really didn’t matter because the tomahawk had already sunk into the middle of his chest.
The plug went one way and the bottle went the other, but he just flopped over the rear of his horse and hit the ground. I pulled my hatchet from his chest and wiped the blood on his shirt. I found his share of the money and a handful of jewels in his saddle bags. I left him where he lay, and moved on to the top.
There wasn’t any time for stealth, they were already making the split and breaking up. As I got nearer to the top, I could hear the laughter and celebrating. They were a happy bunch… for the time being.
Pulling up behind the same boulder I’d used earlier, I could see three horses. Two were being held by the man called Porter, who sat on the other. Cletus and another m
an were on the ground laughing and finishing off a bottle of whiskey. The unnamed man tilted the bottle to his mouth as his head went back, I shattered the bottle with a rifle bullet.
They all stood stunned for a half a second, and then they all turned in my direction. I took Porter out of the saddle with a shot to the chest. The other two started to break for the shack, but they must have remembered how little protection that was. So they changed direction and headed around to the back. I didn’t have a shot due to the horses being in the way.
While they were finding cover, I broke to my right and slipped under cover of the pines. A couple of shots close to the horses’ hooves scattered them. I took the time to shove more cartridges into my Winchester. They were holding to cover, so I waited.
Counting to sixty at least six times, I knew it would seem more like six hours than six minutes to them. So I expected them to start doing something soon. It was short of seven minutes when I saw a hat and part of a face peek around the right rear corner of the shack. It drew back too quick for me to get a shot, but I could see part of a leg. It was a foot and a half above the ground at that same corner. He was kneeling and getting ready to move and fire. So I aimed at where his thigh should be and fired.
I got some meat from the sound of that cry, I just didn’t know what kind of meat or how good the cut. But I didn’t have to wonder long because Cletus came hobbling out blasting away with his six-gun. He was heading for the mine entrance. I took a snap shot at him but missed. He turned and took another shot in my direction, but all he got was a click.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other one breaking in the other direction and heading up the slope. I took another quick shot hoping to turn him back, but he turned into the brush. Cletus had made it to the mine, so I took a couple of shots at the hole and listened to the lead slugs bouncing off the walls.
The one up the hill was my main focus at that time. I didn’t want to have to track him through the woods. But if Cletus got to a horse, I’d have to track him too. That was a lot easier. Taking note of where that man had taken to the brush, I swung wide to my left and circled high above where he went in.
Much higher than I needed to be, I waited, watched, but mostly listened. Western boots were made for riding a horse, but not moving about through the brush. Within a few minutes time, I could hear him coming up the slope. I’m sure he thought he was quiet as a mouse, but calling him a full grown bull would describe his movements better.
I was in the pines and the brush had thinned out up there. He’d be able to move quieter, but he’d be easier to see. As he got closer the sounds of his movements lessened, but I was able to pin point him. He came out about fifty yards from me and about a yard closer than where I had figured.
He was making a job of climbing and trying to stay under cover, but he expected the chase to be from below. Stopping for a breather and to listen for pursuit, he was standing looking downhill. I had a perfectly clear shot at him.
“You want to toss that rifle and give up?”
He turned toward me and sent a pine bark flying to the left and well behind me. Working his lever to get another shot gave me plenty of time to aim and pull the trigger. He slammed against the tree behind him and slid to the ground.
That one wasn’t going anywhere, so I worked my way down and across the brushy slope above the cabin, where I could get a good look at the mine entrance. I crouched there trying to see deeper into the shaft. I took note that all three horses were still in the yard, so Cletus was still around.
Then I heard noises in the mine. He was moving things around trying to get some cover. All I cared about was having him in there. If he wanted to hide in there, then he could stay there forever… for all I cared.
I started pulling and hacking dried brush, pretty soon I had the most of the entrance blocked with it. It was piled up good and thick. Then I started chopping some greener stuff. My last act was to twist some of the dryer ones into a nice tight bundle, which I put a match to and dropped on the pile.
It didn’t take any time for the whole pile to catch fire. When the green stuff got hot enough to burn, huge billows of white smoke filled the entrance and everything from there on back.
Scrambling down that slope, I got back to my original boulder and waited. Within a few minutes, Cletus came hobbling and coughing out through the fire. It was in my mind to take him in for trial, but he wouldn’t have it. He came out of there blind as a mole, spraying lead as fast as he could work the lever. Most of his shots wounded trees and rocks, but one hit the horse I’d planned on riding.
So I shot him. He dropped his rifle and grabbed his chest. Then he dropped to his knees and toppled over. His right hand was trying to find his rifle, but I kicked it out of his reach. Then I shoved him over on his back with my foot.
He lay there with frothy red foam coming out of his nose and mouth. He’d taken a bullet through the lung. He’d soon drown on his own blood. I left him and went to put that wounded horse down.
I went to collecting what belonged to the Silvermans. Most of it was stashed in their saddle bags. I found gemstones in tobacco pouches and in pants pockets, but I really didn’t know how many there were. There was a bunch of them.
Cletus was still alive when I got ready to leave, so I went to say so long. I squatted there trying to figure out what words of wisdom to leave with him, when he made the choice for me.
“Why?” he managed to ask.
“You made that little girl cry.”
The End
About the Author
A lifelong story teller, Lou Bradshaw is what some people would call a late bloomer. He didn’t start writing until he was in his mid sixties, and even then it was only a hobby. It wasn’t until he was well into his second novel that he discovered Amazon Kindle. Today, he claims writing is still a hobby, and as long as he can think of it that way, he’ll keep doing it.
You can find Lou’s books on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Lou-Bradshaw/e/B00FV0F78O/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3?qid=1456199404&sr=1-3
The Mirror
By
Tell Cotten
Chapter one
Have you ever traveled in a wagon? Let me assure you, there’s nothing much pleasant about it.
I like to ride a horse. Always have. But, not on this trip.
We had been traveling for two weeks. We were irritable, covered in dust, and in need of a bath and shave.
The purpose of our journey was to fetch a huge mirror back to our newly built hotel in Empty-lake, Texas, to hang on the wall behind our elaborate, mahogany bar. The mirror had been built in Dallas, and it was rumored to be the biggest mirror in Texas in 1874.
It was probably the heaviest mirror in Texas too. I knew from experience, because I helped load the thing into our wagon.
We were now on our way back to Empty-lake, and travel was slow.
We had carefully wrapped the mirror with blankets, but we still couldn’t help but wince every time we hit a bump. And, with a wagon, hitting bumps was quite routine.
My name is Lee Mattingly. I’m tall, thin, and ruggedly handsome. Last time I figured it, I was in my mid-thirties.
Most folks in Texas know who I am. And, almost everybody’s opinion is that I need to have my neck lengthened by a rope.
I’ve often been described as a rough, mean gunfighter of the West. I’ve ridden with Ben Kinrich, Rondo Landon, and the Oltman brothers, and we’ve robbed stagecoaches, payrolls, banks, and even rustled a few cows.
Harsh as that sounds, I’ve never considered myself to be quite as bad as everyone’s made me out to be. I’ve always had a different set of values than most outlaws, and I’m extremely loyal.
I’ve never killed anybody unless it was necessary, and I’ll admit it’s been necessary quite a few times these past few years. However, Ben always made sure all those folks we robbed were no good Northerners. That was real important to us, seeing how we were poor ol’ Southerners fresh out of the war.
&n
bsp; Rondo Landon finally had enough. He walked away, and a few years later he finally convinced me that living honest had more perks than being an outlaw. So, I managed to receive a pardon by doing some work for the Texas Rangers, and I was now attempting to live an honest and straightforward life.
My companion, Brian Clark, was also an ex-outlaw. He was in his mid-fifties, and was a grizzled veteran.
Brian and I were alike in a lot of ways. He was loyal, and he had a gentle-like way about him. He was always careful; he never took any chances unless he had to.
The two of us had recently received a big sum of money, and we’d come by it honest too. Jessica Tussle had hired us to do a job, and we’d done it.
We were now partners, and we’d invested all our money into building the fanciest hotel Texas had ever seen. The plan was for me to handle the poker room, and Brian would manage the hotel part.
A hard bump interrupted my thoughts, and Brian and I cringed and held our breaths as the wagon rocked back and forth.
“Whose idea was this, transporting a mirror half-way across Texas?” I complained.
“Yours,” Brian said.
“That’s enough out of you,” I glared at him.
“Slow as we’re going, termites might eat our hotel before we get back,” Brian said as he ignored my comment.
I nodded in agreement, and we traveled another mile in silence. But then we hit another bump, and I drew in a deep breath and exhaled loudly.
“I’ve bounced enough for one day,” I grumbled. “Let’s make camp.”
“We’ve still got an hour of daylight left,” Brian objected.
Wanted: A Western Story Collection Page 5