The Hardest Ride

by Gordon L. Rottman

“King Fisher had a spread down near Eagle Pass, right on the Rio Grande too. Banditos were always coming across raping, looting, and rustling. Brigandage was rampant. King dressed real flamboyant, bright-colored shirts, sashes, carried a pair of nickel-plated pistols with ivory grips. His gang of vigilantes would chase after raiders, and they started doing their own raiding and rustling.

  “So he was just like the Mexes.”

  “Right. He wasn’t the only one. Other ranchers were doing the same thing. Had shootouts all the time with the Mexes and each other, whenever the urge struck them. There was a regular war going on. Texican or Mex, they were just a bunch a gangs. One time Fisher’s gang argued about sharing the loot and he ended up shooting three of his own men.”

  We reached the Eagle Pass-Del Rio Road slashing through the ranch. “Clay’s been wanting to fence both sides of the road. Passers-by sometimes ride off with a cow. Guess we’ll put that up someday, when he gets the money.”

  Lee hooked a leg around his saddle horn and took out his makings. “Anyway, old King was no better than them Mex desperados. Worse, some said. Least he didn’t raid other ranches on this side. There’s were some done that.” He handed me a rolled one and stated on his own. “It only got worse with reprisals. King was so brazen he thought he owned the county. He even set a sign that said, ‘This is King Fisher’s road. Take the other one.’

  “Finally the Rangers had enough. You know how the Rangers are. When enough’s enough, they end it, usually shooting someone. Damn ranchers were causing more problems than the Mexes. The Mexes would slack off, but the ranchers kept going at them, and the reprisals would all start over.”

  I lit up Lee’s cig, then mine. “Reprisals?”

  “Getting back at you. Old Lender McNelly, heading the Ranger’s Special Force, he was chasing the Mex banditos across the border. Never mind the governor telling him to stop. That was Captain McNelly, did what needed doing and to hell with the politicking niceties. One night he raided Fisher’s ranch and arrested that scoundrel.” With his face smiling, Lee said, “They came to a gentleman’s agreement, not that I’d of called either of them gentlemen, that Fisher would retire from his lawless career.”

  “Did he?”

  “Oh, yeah. In fact, he become the county sheriff up in Uvalde for a time.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “He cashed out in a gunfight in the Turner Hall Opera House at San Antone two year ago.” Lee yawned. “Hell, I wish we had the likes of Lender McNelly around here now. That was a man who’d charge hell with a bucket of water. He died of consumption some time back.”

  “Did you know him? McNelly?”

  “Oh yeah. My cousin Enoch was one of his Rangers. Enoch Garret would be good to have here too, excepting he got shot in a Mex whorehouse, sixty-four years old.” He laughed. “I should hope to go that way.”

  “I’ve heard that name. Something about a wolf?”

  “Yeah, Enoch caught an ol’ boy who’d been dry-gulching farmers. Tied him up to a tree and tied two wolf pups he’d found to him. The mama wolf wasn’t too happy when she showed up.”

  Thinking about that made me shiver. “She kill him?”

  “Nope, but he changed his ways. I guess because you can’t hold a gun proper when you don’t have all your fingers.”

  Not far from the road saw sometime brown and white in the mesquite. We rode over to find a fresh dead cow missing a hind-quarter.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “What a waste,” I said looking at the dead three-legged cow.

  “Been happening a lot of late. Hungry drifters shooting themselves a bigger than usual antelope, so to speak. We’ll send a wagon out for it. We’ll be eating on it for a few days.” He stopped and said, “Take a look around, see what you think.”

  I circled the carcass. Lee hung back watching.

  “There were two of them.” Studying the prints around the cow, I saw where they mounted horses and headed toward the Rio. “Looks like they’re going across the river, but they ain’t Mexes.”

  “How come you say that?” I had Lee’s interest.

  “Mex boots have lower heels. That’s easy to see in this mud, and their toes are rounder.”

  “Fine, you impressed me. Let’s see where they crossed.”

  I knew he was curious about what else I could see on the ground.

  We were almost three miles from the road and nearing the low bluff that dropped down to the river’s loop, the sheep’s snout. I smelled cooking beefsteak and wood smoke.

  “Them boys must be hungry, but smart enough to back away from the road,” said Lee.

  “What you wanna do about it?”

  “Put the fear of God in them.” Nodding to our right toward the bluff head, “There’s Gent.”

  I saw a rider looking at us and pointing with his rifle back down the bluff.

  “We’ll move in closer and go in on foot,” said Lee, nudging his horse forward.

  Gent met us in the brush at the bluff head. He nodded to me. That was all the introduction we had. He was concentrating on the job at hand.

  At the bottom of the bluff were two punches roasting a haunch of beef over a fire. Their horses were hobbled nearby. I kind of felt sorry for them, two out of work and hungry cowboys. Leaving our horses, we worked our way down the gentle slope through the mesquite.

  Thirty feet from them Lee said, “You boys got enough dinner for everybody?”

  That kicked quite a reaction. They were both scrambling for guns, but when they saw three rifles leveled at them, they only reached for the sky. I didn’t see any rifles, just their pistols.

  “What in tarnation you boys up to?” shouted Lee. He lowered his carbine, Gent and I didn’t. Lee walked toward them, took a knee. “Have a sit, boys, and lose them hoglegs.”

  The two of us moved around to the sides.

  “How about you two throw a couple of ropes over a stout limb on that oak over yonder?”

  I looked at Gent. He said, “Sure, boss.”

  Gent fetched the horses, and I stayed with Lee, but he was kneeling and keeping his carbine on them and I joined Gent when he came down.

  “He serious about stringing them up?”

  I musta had a silly look, for he laughed. “Nah, he’s scarin’ the horse piss outta ’em.” Offering his hand, “Gent Ponder.”

  “Bud Eugen.” I told him of my hiring as we threw over our lariats.

  Gent told me of events along the Sycamore and about the bandits. The Mexes sounded better organized than I’d expected. We watched Lee making a lot of arm gestures and the two punches nodding their heads.

  “Lee can pitch such a fit that he’ll make a fistfight look like a prayer meetin’.”

  “What you think he’s telling them?” I asked.

  “Oh, how the hen laid the cackle-berry and that nothing’s free ’cepting your mama’s tit.”

  I mulled that over. My mama probably made me pay.

  Lee waved us over. “This is Pete Weyland and Earnest Sessuns. I hired them, and they invited us to share their chuck.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Gent said, “I guess we don’t need ’em strings, then.”

  »»•««

  Lee and Gent rode the new hires in, leaving me to monitor. I didn’t like the looks of Weyland. He seemed a hard character, eyes jerking about all the time and never looking you in the eye. Sessuns seemed fine, but was kind of unsure of himself, saying little. Both them been out of work for some time, broke as a piecrust. Sessuns’ boot soles were so thin worn he’d be able to feel if a silver dime was heads or tails. They said they’d sold their carbines. They’d hooked up in Eagle Pass, so hadn’t known each other long.

  Gent came back out before sunset with a wagon, and we helped Roberto load up the cow. Gent filled me in more on what was going on. I moseyed around getting familiar with the Sheep’s Head. I picked a place to roll out my bedroll near the first crossing over the Sycamore.

  Gent had brought out some cold fried beefsteak
s, but we fixed that with a little fire. He was going to stakeout another crossing.

  That’s some little gal you got there,” he commented.

  “She ain’t my woman.”

  “Right. I heared y’all shack-up in the feed shed.” He was smiling.

  “It ain’t like that.” I was trying to keep from becoming annoyed.

  “Right.” He was still smiling and wisely dropped the subject.

  We talked a spell. I was surprised to learn he’d been a deputy marshal in both Gonzales and Seguin.

  “Why’d you quit law-manning?”

  “Too many troublemakers. It’s quieter out here, and the fellas ya work with are real…mostly,” he added.

  “Yeah, so here you are waiting to dry-gulch banditos.”

  He chuckled. “Yep, don’t that beat all? At least I ain’t gotta watch my own back like in a saloon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I spent four days out on the Sheep’s Head. I had to keep reminding myself that anything could happen at any time. The peaceful countryside was misleading.

  On my second day out I was trotting along a mesquite line when I got a chilly feeling up my back. I was being followed. I edged into the brush where it was thinner, a natural drift for a wandering monitor. But I fish-hooked back, and bending low under the limbs, I worked my way back to my trail as quiet as a deer. The limbs blocked my view, so I dismounted and hung Cracker’s reins over a limb. I left my rifle as the brush was thick. I worked my way to my backtrail. I’d take a couple of steps and listen. Every few steps I’d take a knee and scan beneath the brush, and listen. I finally heard it, the rustle of a horse passing slowly through brush. I unshucked my revolver, but didn’t cock it for fear of being heard. A flash of white caught my eye and I saw the horse’s legs, one with a white sock. Hunching down further I could see knee-high leather leggings, a vaquero’s right leg.

  The ’quero nudged his horse forward a few steps, and I used the slight noise as cover to move myself. He stopped. Must be listening for me. We were both still for a long spell. I was maybe twenty feet from him. His horse moved its feet, impatient, then nervously nickered ever so quietly. The ’quero whispered and lightly patted its neck. Cracker heard it and moved. The ’quero’s right leg disappeared as he silently slid off his horse. I could barely make him out crouching and looking for movement in the direction of Cracker. He made the mistake of not looking behind himself. That reminded me to check around myself. All was clear. He moved to his right, deeper into the mesquite toward Cracker, maybe forty feet away, but unseen.

  I duck-walked beneath the mesquite and got behind his horse, unnoticed.

  The horses nickered quietly at one another, like they knew something furtive was going on. The ’quero edged forward, ducking his head lower looking under the brush.

  I holstered my revolver, run to his horse, and with my hands hitting its rump, vaulted into the saddle. The horse took a leap forward, and I drew my revolver. “Stand and show your hands!”

  The hombre, with a look of grand surprise, left his revolver on the ground and rose with his arms spread.

  Cocking my revolver, “What you doing here sneaking around.”

  He sorta smiled. “You Bud?” he asked just like I’d met him walking on the street. “Gent told me to be on lookout for you.”

  “And you’re?”

  “Héctor Vega.”

  I dismounted and called Cracker, who came trotting over.

  “They call me Flaco. That mean Skinny.” He was well set up, though, and had a couple or three years on me. Had heavy hair hanging down to his shoulders.

  He looked skinny, in a hard, lean sort of way. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. He spoke good American, almost sounded like a Texican.

  “Can I pick up my pistol? You got the drop on me good.” He was smiling, but it looked to be painful.

  I nodded, but didn’t holster mine until he had his own tucked in.

  I was going to have to work with him, so I said, “Sorry about sneaking up on you, but I’m only learning the place. Don’t know who’s who.”

  “That is good.” Not that he really meant it. “You can no be too careful.”

  We shook hands regarding each other and mounted our rightful horses.

  When I asked where he hailed from he said, “I do not know if I was borned in Del Rio or Ciudad Acuña on other side. They all argue about it in the family.”

  I thought that was funny. I might not be sure who my daddy was, but at least I know what country I was borned in.

  “What brings you to monitoring?” I was curious on what cut him out special for the job.

  He shook his head with a crooked grin. “I was bandito.”

  I guess I looked surprised for he was really laughing. “You’re shitting me.”

  “I tell you true, for more than a year, amigo. Then the Rurales catch me.”

  “No kidding.”

  “You know they have the ley fuga.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ley fuga, the Law of Flight. Caught bandito is give two choices, die between an adobe wall and a row of carbines, or he can go to run for it. If he dodges the bullets, he is let free. Most run, would not you? The Rurales claim shot trying to escape. That way, Rurales no have to bother transporting prisoners, no annoying trial, no monies to feed in the jail.

  “You ran for it?”

  “No, no. I thought I have to, but they tell me I must join them.”

  “Don’t that beat all. Why?”

  “As I stand before God, I do not know. Except maybe they need more of the men.”

  “I be damned.”

  “Probably. Some other Rurales were banditos too. I was in the Rurales almost two year.”

  “They let you quit?” I was trying to figure out how I’d gotten the drop on a Rurale. Hell, Los Cuerpos Rurales was almost like Texas Rangers.

  “Oh, no. They never do that. I just leave one day. Ride to Del Rio.” He pulled his coat open. “I still wear this.” He was showing a red necktie.

  “Well, I be dipped in horseshit.”

  He pulled out his revolver. It was a .44-30 Merwin Hulbert, issued to the Rurales. “We carry three of these. I sell other two.”

  “I ain’t never seen one.”

  “The Merwin, it is good. It load mucho fast.”

  “Can you even get cartridges for it? That’s only used by the Mexes, right.”

  “I get in Del Rio, but they cost too much.”

  He showed me a short-barrel .45 Smith & Wesson Schofield in a saddle holster hidden under a cowhide flap.

  Flaco had a good eye for the land. We spent the day exploring the crossings on the Sycamore, even riding on the V-Bar-M side.

  Before nightfall, we were down on the cane flats on the Rio Grande, the snout of the Sheep’s Head. It wasn’t long before a couple of ’queros rode out of the mesquite. The river’s only about a hundred yards across. It wasn’t too cold that day and instead of being wrapped in serapes, they wore their short tight jackets, thick brown trousers laced up the sides with high leather leggings, and big tan sombreros.

  Them and Flaco were shouting back and forth, I guess talking about the weather. Then I heard my name.

  “I introduce you,” he said.

  “Oh, good.”

  “They good. I know these vatos. They from Rancho Mariposa.” Looking at my expression, he said, “They have troubles from banditos too. We tell each other what we know.”

  “What’s Mary-posa mean?”

  “Butterfly.”

  Who’d name a ranch after a butterfly? Mexes, I don’t know about them sometimes.

  They buenas nochaed each other, and Flaco and me rode back to the bluff to part and set our own camp sites.

  “Amigo,” he said quietly.

  “Yep?”

  “You know you no have to say anything about what happened today to Lee or any of the crew.” He was gritting his teeth like he could bite through a rifle barrel.

  I wi
nked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, partner.”

  »»•««

  The third day out I was riding along Quicksand Creek—that’s what they call it, but no one knew of any quicksand—near where it ran into the Sycamore. I saw a rider some distance away on the other side of the Quicksand. I watched and realized it was Marta on Rojizo wearing her coat and hat. Marta had split her black wool dress up the front and back and sewed them together making it easier to sit a saddle. Presently, she dismounted, un-holstered her shotgun, and started walking through the low brush. I watched her for a spell, bagging half-a-dozen jackass rabbits and wasting only one shot. She’d pop a rabbit and run through the mesquites to fetch it. I could see I was going to have to buy some more birdshot when I got into Del Rio. Maybe Clay would stake me since she was hunting to feed the ranch. I liked to watch her, frisky as a filly on a spring day.

  Mounting Rojizo, she surprised me by waving and lit out at a gallop up my ridge. She made a slow circle around me and held up a rabbit, nodding. Looks like we’d made up. At least, she wasn’t glaring at me like that morning in the feed shed.

  I collected sticks and cow paddies as Marta stripped off the rabbit skin and gutted it. Cutting a can of pork and beans open, I set it on the fire. She roasted the rabbit on a spit. Tearing off shreds of meat, we wrapped them in tortillas, ate the beans too with tortillas. That simplest of meals was tops.

  Marta sat on a blanket and leaned against me. We put an arm around each other. The sun set in Mexico with pinks and blues and colors I couldn’t name. After a spell, she turned around on her knees and looked into my eyes for the longest time. It made me feel queasy and warm and good about things.

  She rode off to the ranch house to fix their supper.

  »»•««

  It was a long four days and three nights. Lonely too, except when I went in for a meal. Marta ran out and give me a big ol’ hug and a sweet smile. Kinda embarrassed me around the crew. The meal she’d always serve me herself, sometimes sneaking me a glass of buttermilk. The way she let me know she missed me was she’d wrap her arms around herself and give a shiver like she was cold.

  She showed me the new-made cots in the feed shed. They were real nice with laced ropes to hold the straw-filled tick mattresses. There were even buckwheat husk-filled pillows. They were as close together as a cow and its newborn. That’s the way it’s going to be I suppose.