by Lou Bradshaw
Our pursuers were shooting, but the distance was too great for any kind of shot especially at a full gallop. I think they were trying to drive us somewhere. Then I saw the little canyon up ahead to the left. My first thought was to head for it and hole up, but my second thought was that could be a death trap. That’s where they wanted us to go.
So we headed right up the slope toward that rocky ridge. Then I saw dirt kick up ahead and to the right followed by the report of a buffalo gun. Someone wanted us to turn into that canyon, so we kept climbing. I turned and took a wild shot with my sawed off, not expecting to hit anything with any force. At best, all I could do was give somebody a good stinging.
I must have stung one of their horses because one of them started pitching and bucking like he had stepped into a bee’s nest. Well, at least it would slow one of them down… I’d take what I could get.
I heard another boom from that Sharps, but never saw where or what it hit, so I wasn’t too worried about it. I was hoping we’d make it to the rocks before he could reload. Scrambling up the last ten or fifteen yards we made it into the relative safety of the boulders.
I was out of the saddle before my horse could come to a sliding stop and behind a good sized rock laying down some cover fire for Sam, as he was getting the horses safely tucked away.
They were turning back; nobody wants to ride straight into that kind of setup. They’d wait, and we’d wait. I saw a horse go down, but I couldn’t tell if it was from a bullet or because of the terrain. The rider scrambled behind some rocks, and the horse got up and limped off a ways. I could see that it was flopping a foreleg, so I shot it.
We were on a point of sorts. That little canyon was to our right and to our left was more of what we had just come through, a washed out river course all twisting and turning as far as the eye could see. I saw our packhorse standing in some brush and scrub trees lower down the slope and about two hundred yards to the left. That was the bulk of our food and most everything else that we needed. But we could get along living off the land if need be. Neither of us was a pilgrim.
So there we sat and would sit at least till dark. Sam was over to the right and I was to the left, with each of us trying to cover all the ground we could. Movement off to my far right caught my eye. I waited and then I saw a rider come from cover at the mouth of that little canyon. He rode out slow and easy and another man on horseback followed. I watched them move out as if to make a wide circle out of our range, so I gave them a reason to move a little faster.
I saw the first man jerk and slump forward in the saddle, and then they were both on the run and soon out of range. About that time that big old Sharps .50 caliber woke up again and sent rock chips flying near me. The boys down below started sending up covering fire.
“That canyon would have been a death trap, Sam.” I told him. “They had a couple of men in there all set to cut us down.” He grunted his agreement.
So that made seven including that fella over on that ridge. I had planned on going down among them when the sun went down, but those two new ones made that plan a little unworkable. It was time to make a new plan.
“What ya think, Ben?” Sam asked.
“I was gonna wait till dark and go down amongst ‘em, but those last two kinda gave me second thoughts. Maybe we ought to just sit up here and wait for ‘em to come up.”
“Huh”?
“That’s kinda what I figured you’d say, but I’m hatchin’ up a little mischief. Give me a few minutes and let’s see what we can cook up.”
I thought for a few more minutes and then laid it out for him. He, of course, argued about parts of it, but in the end he realized it was our best chance of getting out of this with our whole skins, or at least getting out alive.
So we sat out the afternoon with nothing to do but torment those boys down there. Every now and then, I’d yell down to them and tell them that I had a chicken ready to put on the spit, and if they wanted some they could just come on up and help themselves. The only response I got back was a whole bunch of cussin’ and threats. They were getting riled.
After a while I built up a little fire back among the rocks and every now and then I’d toss a little juniper on it and it would flare up and smoke. Then I’d ask how that chicken smelled… more cussin’ and more threats. That fella with the Sharps must have run out of ammunition or he saw the futility of it and withdrew, which would mean there would be seven of them down there come sundown.
I took a chunk of bacon from my saddle bag and cut off a couple of big pieces of fat and put ‘em in my tin coffee cup, which I set on the fire. That would give them something to smell while they waited for dark. I left Sam watching them, while I went back in the rocks picking up anything that would burn. I returned with a pretty good armload of firewood and went to work on it with my Bowie.
We kept the little fire going all afternoon and into the evening. The shadows grew longer and deeper. Twilight came and then passed into darkness. “Sam,” I said, “those boys have been listening to me all afternoon and smelling that bacon, I’d say they won’t wait long.”
He agreed that they’d be wanting to get their hands on me, so I sent him back to get the horses ready. He didn’t want to leave, but he knew it was for the best. I had both our pistols and my shotgun, and Sam had both rifles. What I had to do right now was close work, sixguns were best. The most I hoped for was to repel them with a lot of lead flying.
I got back behind the fire with a chest high boulder as my fort. The sixguns were both loaded with their maximum. I never did like that idea of only putting five bullets in the cylinder. I had twelve close friends and four shells loaded with buckshot in my vest pocket and one in the chamber. Now I would wait… they wouldn’t be long.
I could hear them moving up the slope. They were pretty good at it. I figure those boys had done some sneaking up on folks before. The area in front of the fire was fairly clear of large rocks; we’d moved everything we could during the afternoon trying to get some shelter. I expected them to come all at once, but I didn’t know how many to expect…. it could be five, six or seven. A lot would depend on how bad that fella was hit and if that boy with the Sharps joined up.
It didn’t matter much how many there were, I fully expected to be leaking some if and when I got back to where Sam and the horses were waiting. All I could do was scan the outer edge of light from the fire and listen. Shotgun in my right hand and Sam’s sixgun in my left, and I waited.
They came together but not all at once. There was one on the far left and one on the far right coming at the same time. The one on the left took a full load of buckshot and disappeared from the top of our breast work wall. The shotgun went into its holster as my left hand gun came up flaming. My right hand gun came out of the holster, but there were no targets. I quickly broke and reloaded the shotgun, and it again filled my right hand. A head popped up and was gone, but I held my fire. The head popped up and down again, and I shot at it with my left gun. As I expected, that head came right back up a few feet away and it was followed by a whole body coming over those rocks. The buckshot sent him back down the slope. Another was coming up as I was pulling my right hand gun. I shot poorly with the left hand, but I got close enough to my target to send it running for cover.
I could hear them stumbling and scooting down that slope. The attack had broken. They’d lost two and I wasn’t too confident that anymore were too badly damaged. Quickly, I grabbed a handful of the torches I’d made this afternoon with rags torn from one of my shirts soaked with bacon grease. Touching them to the fire one by one, I then flung them as far down that slope as I could, until I had a dozen of them spread in an arc of lights in front of me. One or two had caught in junipers or some other bush and flared up better than I hoped. They’d play hell coming up the slope without being seen, and they knew it.
I left my fire and my burnt out tin cup, and I was with Sam and the horses within a matter of a few seconds. “Look who showed up.” Sam said, pointing to the pack
horse. “He came looking for his friends.”
We took off leading the animals on a little dirt ledge that ran along the bottom of that limestone cliff. We didn’t know how far it would run or where it would take us, but it was taking us east, and that’s where we wanted to go.
Chapter 6
They’d be back, of that I had no doubt, so we needed to put distance between them and us. I didn’t think they’d want to follow us out into the dark, but they might move on ahead of us and wait.
We led the horses for about a quarter mile and were just about ready to mount up and head down the slope when we came on a good sized crack in that wall of limestone. It was wide enough for a horse to get up, but it was almighty steep. If we could get them up the first six or so feet, they could make it.
I scrambled up to get a better feel for it, and I was felt confident that Smoke could make it with a little help. I had Sam put a rope around his neck and toss the other end to me. I got down to the steepest part and gave a tug just to let him know where I wanted him to go.
He made a few false starts not sure he wanted to try bein’ a mountain goat. Finally Sam gave him the flat of his hand across his butt and up he came, nearly knocking me down in the process. I guess he had a little bit of goat in him after all. I’ll never cease to be amazed to what a Mustang can and will do. With Smoke pulling on the rope, the other two weren’t much trouble. That little packhorse was the easiest of the lot. Sam just wrapped the rope around his waist and Smoke brought him up like pulling a bucket out of a well.
Once up on level ground, we mounted and moved off taking a wide circle to the north away from the river. An hour later and a good six miles away, we made a cold camp. I was hopeful that those men wouldn’t consider us worth the effort. Two dead and another or two wounded was a pretty expensive price to pay for an unknown value. But we’d be on our guard for sure.
Those men were most likely a part of the trouble Marshal Stewart had told us about. They had a nice little set up, and it almost worked. It we’d have headed into that canyon, we’d more than likely be laying toes up or at best hurt, unarmed, and afoot. In this country, being like that means only a matter of time until you are toes up.
I spent an uncomfortable night, waking often at the slightest movement or noise from the horses, especially mine. I’m sure that Sam hadn’t slept any better, but those were the prices we paid to get what we wanted. What we wanted was to get to the bar over lazy J ranch and get some cows. I figured we were still at least a hundred miles out.
We made a fire and cooked up a nice filling breakfast of bacon, beans and biscuits with plenty of coffee, which I had to drink out of a pot. Well, I needed a new cup anyway, and that one had served its purpose well.
Moving out we stayed out on open ground as much as possible avoiding the easy route through those water courses. It was easy enough traveling, but we caught the full brunt of the winds, which were blowing from the south, fortunately. On and on we went in the general direction of east south east to where we figured Amarillo sat.
Along about mid afternoon, we started seeing cattle. They were longhorns and wearing a brand. It’s told that there were still a passel of longhorn mavericks in this part of Texas. There’s also been a bunch of folks shot, hung, or just run off for slapping a brand on them. Well we weren’t looking for none of them, so we just kept moving.
As the day went on, we began to see more and more cattle, all longhorns, and all wearing the same brand. So it didn’t come as a shock when we saw a ranch house sitting alongside a full running creek. It looked like a nice spread with a neat looking rambling one story log house. There was a good solid barn and several outbuildings, one of which was a bunkhouse. Splashing through the creek we rode into the grassy front yard.
It was then, I noticed that there were heavy shutters ready to swing shut with rifle ports cut in. Guess they’ve had some Indian problems, or maybe they just didn’t like to take chances. I hallood the house, and we sat and waited.
Someone poked his head out of the side door and yelled out, “Get on down, and come on in. I’m a cookin’, and I can throw some more meat on the fire.” The head disappeared, and we got down and went to the door.
“Howdy,” I said, “I’m Ben Blue and this here is Sam Stellars. We’re on our way to Amarillo from Taos, and we could probably use a little directin’.”
“Wal, yer goin’ the right way, but you kinder a little off line.” He said. He was a little fella in tallness, but he had a pair of shoulders on him that would make most men envious. There was more hair on his chin and jaws than on the top of his head and it was all brown and speckled with gray.
“We ran into a bunch on the main trail yesterday, down in the river breaks, who kinda persuaded us to change our course a little. So now, we’re tryin to get ourselves lined out again.” I told him.
“Yah, there’s been mor’n more of ‘em over there. Seems like they’re breedin’. How bad they hit ya?”
“Mostly, they just wasted our time and cost us some ammunition. We got lucky and didn’t fall into their trap. I counted seven in all, but they’re two short now and a couple hurtin’.”
He told us that his name was Able Stoner the owner of the spread along with his brother. They had a couple of empty bunks in the bunk house that we’d be welcome to use. Supper, he said would be ready in about a quarter hour.
We thanked him and went to stow our gear and take care of our horses. There were two more hands in the bunkhouse just waiting for the dinner bell. By the time we were washed up the bell was ringing.
At the table, we were joined by Able’s brother Mason. He was a shade taller than his brother, but not near as powerfully built. The discussion naturally got around to the raiders and their tactics. There seemed to be more than a couple bunches working the area, and they seemed to be fond of springing traps and working folks into some tight spots. In other words someone was doing some thinking ahead of time.
The Sharps .50 sounded like something new to these men. They all agreed that we were lucky to have gotten out of there with our hides in one piece. I dare say they were right.
The next morning Able pointed us in the right direction for the main trail and for the town of Nolo. He said it wasn’t much of a town, just two stores, three whores, and a saloon. He reckoned it to be about forty miles as the crow flies and more south than west. He’d only been there once or twice; they got their supplies from a little town ten miles to the north east.
Back out on the open prairie, we made good time. The day was sunny, but the wind had a bit of a bite to it. Luckily it was coming from the north and to our backs, so we didn’t have to buck it.
We were seeing a few scattered cattle and a few small groups of buffalo well off in the distance. They were probably moving north for the spring and summer. I was told that there was a time when these plains were black with them. I figured their days were numbered with the railroads killing them off by the millions and cattle ranches taking up their homeland. We took note of them and moved on south and east toward Nolo.
Riding on through the day, we were able to make about twenty five of those miles and were hoping to reach Nolo by the next evening. Barring any trouble, that shouldn’t be a problem. It was getting close to evening, and we’d been looking for a place to make camp, when we spotted a line of trees off in the distance. That would at least offer shelter from this infernal wind, so we headed for it.
The tree line would indeed give us some protection from the wind. I put together a fire with what firewood we could find close at hand. Sam was taking the pack saddle off to get to the pots pans and food.
After the fire was going well, I went looking for more dry firewood. There must have been a heavy rain through here in the last day or so because everything was wet. I found some downstream and saw where what looked like a forked tree had fallen and brought the other half of the fork down with it. The second half of that tree had sheltered much of the wood. I loaded up and went back to camp. Sam was sl
icing meat in the pan, and he already had the coffee going.
I went back downstream for a second load. The cache I’d found wasn’t more than a couple hundred yards away, but a man can only carry so much wood that distance before his arms fall off… or feel like it. I figure on making three trips before we’d have enough to last the night.
I had just started back when I heard what sounded like several horses and voices yelling. I thought oh oh, Smoke’s acting up, but then I heard a shot. Dropping my load, I ran headlong toward camp. As I got closer, I could hear some powerful cussin’, and someone yelled, “Forget that one and get going!”
There were too many voices in that camp and too much that I didn’t know. I ran like a mad man. With gun in hand, I charged through that brush, racing to stop whatever it was from happening because that shot didn’t fill me with confidence. I heard the horses take off before I cleared the brush. I ran into the clearing with my pistol raised and ready to bring down into action.
The first thing I noticed was what was missing….the horses! The pack saddle was there, our gear was there, but the horses weren’t there. The fire was there, but… Sam… I couldn’t see Sam. I spun around looking this way and that. Then I started running this way and the other way calling his name.
Chapter 7
I nearly stepped on him lying behind a log. He’d been shot, I knew, but I didn’t know how bad. He was lying on his back with his arms outstretched. One leg was draped over bare branches of a bush. There was blood on his coat and shirt. Bending down, I was able to tell that he was still breathing, but he was out cold. I picked him up and carried him to the fire. I didn’t know if I should be picking him up or moving him at all, but I had to do something, and I had to at least keep him warm.
The best I could tell, he’d been shot in the upper chest on the left side. It was probably more in the shoulder than the chest. Ripping up another one of my shirts, I got the wound cleaned and bandaged. I was able to find that little flask of medicinal whiskey Sam used to keep the “night chill” away. It was the best thing I knew of to clean a bullet wound. I held a thick pad on the wound for a good long time with considerable pressure on it. Finally the blood flow eased up a bit, and I wrapped that tore up shirt around him in a way to hold that pad there good a tight.