by Lou Bradshaw
“Hey, Boss, looks like we got company.” JL called out to me, and motioned to the rear.
I turned in the saddle, looking back, and sure enough here come a horse around a turn in the trail. It was the same blaze faced sorrel I’d set loose back in the valley, the one that watched as we left. He just trotted on up to us and stepped out to take the lead. I didn’t know what to make of it. There’d been talk among old timers about a horse being as good a tracker has a hound, but I’d never put much stock in it.
My thinking was that he just wanted to be around other horses, but he had two others back there. Or maybe he felt safer around people. I’ve known horses that could almost know what you were saying, and they seem to understand your unspoken whims. This horse either knew where he was going or he really was akin to a blue tick hound because he just took over. Maybe he had him a running buddy up there with Banks and Chambers.
There were any number of forks which could have gone either way, but that horse stayed right on the trail. Carson would check the trail each time he made a turn, and sure enough, we were going the right way.
We were climbing a grade through a tangle of boulders and stunted cedars. It was showing sign of more and more brush mixed in with the cedars. That horse never got more than ten or fifteen yards ahead of us, and if Carson stopped to make sure of the trail, the blaze face would stop and wait.
I don’t know how many degrees of grade that trail was claiming on that climb, but it was almighty steep, and the horses were making work of it. They’d earn a good blow when we reached the top.
I saw Carson’s horse stumble, and then drop to its knees. Then I heard the crack of a rifle.
Chapter 19
It all happened so fast, that Carson had no choice but to go with the fall and try not to get caught under the horse. He went over the front of the collapsing animal. The horse twisted and went sideways and Spade Carson was pitched headfirst into a cluster of boulders. He lay still.
I was out of the saddle and behind some rocks to the left of the trail. I hadn’t actually seen the smoke from the rifle, as it was fired, but I saw it hanging in the air and had a good idea where it came from. Tate was on the ground and was tending to Carson.
He raised a little to show me that Carson was still alive but out cold. Then he held up his hand which had blood on it. That didn’t look good. I figured whoever that was shooting at us was a good two hundred and more yards away, so he wouldn’t be able to hear me talking to Tate.
“JL,” I said, “can you do anything for him”?
“I think so, Boss. He’s got a pretty good lump and a nasty cut, but I can get that wrapped. He’ll have a sore head, but I don’t think he’ll die on us.”
“Good,” I said, “you give that fella up there a shot now and then just to keep him interested in you. I’m going to try to get up there under some of this brushy cover…. For God’s sake, don’t get shot. Patty Anne would skin me if I managed to get you and her grandpa shot.”
He promised not to get shot, so I took off through the brush. I guesstimated that it would take me a good ten to twenty minutes to reach him or get to a place where I could get a shot at him or them. I was only assuming that there was one. There could be another, and I had no idea where he might be. So I was going to have to show a good deal of caution.
I could hear an occasional searching shot from Tate. There wasn’t an answer from the top of the hill, until JL must have gotten one there pretty close because there were three quick shots from the top. And then another came from Tate. I was able to get a position on that hombre. So I just kept on creeping up the hill.
When I got within fifty or sixty yards of his position, I found myself above him on a slightly higher point than where he was. There was bare rock between us and it was all easily covered from where he was. He had a well protected spot with plenty of cover. But he was penned down with no place to go. He couldn’t go anywhere until dark, and I didn’t want to wait around on this hill just so he could ride away.
So I waited till I saw some movement and let one fly. He jumped and dove for better cover. “You might as well come on out of there, Banks.” I yelled. “We got you surrounded. There’s a ranger off to the left of you waitin’ for you to show yourself.”
With that, he swung to the left, leaving his right shoulder exposed. I burned it. I meant to bust it, but he was swinging around too fast. About that time Tate opened up from below, pumping three quick ones into the rocks where he lay. As soon as he quit shooting, I put three more in his little hidey hole, sending hot lead whining in all directions. It was only a matter of time until one of those bullets ripped into him and tore him up good…. And he knew it.
“Give it up, Banks!” I yelled. “You’re gonna get cut to rags if you don’t.” As soon as I put a period at the end of that sentence, I pumped three more into those rocks… as soon as I quit shooting, Tate commenced with about four more.”
“ALRIGHT! ENOUGH!” he yelled. “You win! I’m coming out!”
“Start tossing hardware out of there…. Fling it as far as you can…. In any direction you want, but you better not stand up with anything on you or near you that could hurt a man.”
A sixgun came out first, and next a rifle whirled out and landed in the rocks with a clatter. “The gunbelt too.” I yelled. “When you stand up, you have your hands reaching for an Angel because if you’ve got ANY other weapon on you... that Angel is going to be your only hope.”
Another sixgun came flying out. “Stand up slow… facing my direction.” I instructed. He came up slowly with his hands reaching straight up. I let him stand there for a long half minute and said, “Now, you climb atop that boulder to your right… yeah the gray one… that’s right.”
That boulder was about the size of a barroom piano, and it was rounded on top. He’d be spending all his attention just to be able to stay on top of it, and he wouldn’t have the leisure to think up any mischief. Keeping my rifle aimed at his chest, I started walking toward him.
When I was within fifteen yards of the boulder, I stopped. “Where’s Chambers… or Hamilton, to be more correct?” I asked.
“Who’s Hamilton?”
“That’s Chambers’ real name… Where is he?”
His face turned red with a whole passel of hate, but I had an idea that the hate wasn’t totally directed at me. “That son of a bitch!” he spit out.
“Likely so,” I said, “but where is he?”
“That bastard tried to kill me, back down the trail a ways. He couldn’t get it done, and we had a shoot out…. He took my horse and left me afoot in this God forsaken country…. When I get my hands on him, I’ll kill the snake. My money was in my saddlebags! He wanted it all…. The greedy bastard.”
“You mean he turned on you like you and him turned on those three men you left dead and dying in the camp…. There just ain’t no honor among thieves, is there?”
“Now you just stay where you are for a minute, and do keep those hands pointin’ to Heaven.” While he stood on that boulder, I circled off to my right and retrieved his rifle from among the rocks. “We can’t have something like this getting into the wrong hands… now can we? A rifle that nice would be worth quite a bit to some Comanche buck.” He only glared at me.
“Now you just sit yourself down and slide yourself off that rock. And be almighty careful about it… I’d hate to think of you getting hurt climbin’ down from there, since I was the one who put you up there…. My conscience would grieve me something fierce.”
He started to bend his knees and get into position to slide down, and I took a few steps back, to give us some space. When I did, my right heel caught on some kind of vine or weed and I stumbled backward. For a brief half second, I was trying to keep my balance and he was sailing through the air… coming right at me. I didn’t know a man could sail that far through the air, but he had the advantage of altitude. I had the disadvantage of not having any feet under me and two rifles tucked under my left arm.
&n
bsp; While still in the process of falling, I flung those Winchesters away from me… us and rolled to my left. I still had my Colt in my right hand. Banks missed his target, me, and he had a nasty landing on that broken and rock strewn surface. He was quick to get up, but not as quick as I was. When he came off the ground, I was standing waiting for him with a cocked pistol pointed at his belly button.
“You get credit for trying, but you ain’t winnin’ no prize.” I told him, and made him get up and start marching down that hill, I was kinda half hoping he’d take off running, just so I’d have a reason to get mad enough to shoot him, but that wasn’t my way. He was a real good boy going down the slope, and didn’t give me any reason to get mad.
“When I first met you, Banks, I thought you might be a pretty tough hombre, but I guess I was wrong.” I told him as we walked down the slope. “You’re not tough… you’re just plain mean, and a pretty poor shot with a rifle. How in the world could any man who knew how to use a rifle, shoot a horse and miss the man sittin’ on it? If that’s the kind of shootin’ you do… It’s a wonder you’ve lived this long.” He started to turn but I pulled back the hammer on my Colt again, and he changed his mind.
At the bottom of the hill, I had Banks sit on the ground with JL covering him and with strict orders to shoot if he even looked like he wanted to move, even to scratch his nose. “Here,” I said as I handed him Banks’ rifle, “you need a new rifle; yours has seen better days…. If you have to shoot him, you may as well shoot him with a top dollar weapon.”
Carson was bandaged and the bleeding had pretty much been stopped, but he was still goofy and somewhat off balance. He was sitting on the ground with his back resting against a rock. I went over to him to see how bad off he was. He said he thought he could stand, but he was dizzy and said he had monsters throwing boulders around in his head.
“We seem to be short a horse.” I told him. “You can get up behind Tate, and Banks can walk back to where those other horses are, and we’ll see if we can rope one. Maybe, we can get both of them… Banks’ll slow us down if we have to walk him all the way back.”
I went over to get the saddle bags and other gear off of Carson’s dead horse. I hated to leave his saddle, but there was just no help for it. I tied his Rifle, bedroll, and saddle bags on my own saddle. I got Banks up and stood him out of the way against a boulder with Tate as his personal guard.
Next, I got Carson up and was helping him walk to Tate’s horse. He was pretty unsteady on his feet. What happened next, happened so fast, I wasn’t sure it could have happened. As I moved Carson past Banks, we heard a horse coming down the trail. Tate and I both looked up, not knowing what to expect. Banks shoved Tate aside and grabbed Carson’s Colt. He was cocking it as it was coming up to line with my chest. My old 0.44 was already flashing, roaring, and smoking before he ever got a shot off. His hammer fell on the cartridge and sent an ounce of lead into the dirt and rocks between us.
I stood there looking at the man on the ground without saying a word or thinking a thought, I heard Tate say, “Jesus, Ben… I never saw anything like that… you got two shots off before he could even get it up… Never in my life.” It dawned on me that I was still holding Carson up, so I let him down to the ground and leaned against my horse shaking. I holstered my Colt and wiped my face with my bandana… I was sweating like a pig, and it wasn’t a warm day.
“You alright, Blue?” Carson asked.
In a slightly shaky voice I said, “Spade, I didn’t even know I had a gun in my hand, until I saw the man fall. I didn’t have a chance to even think about it… it just happened. I couldn’t do that again if I tried to a thousand times…. It just happened.” I felt sick and wanted to throw up, but that didn’t happen. I guess there are times when a body takes over and just cuts the mind out of it.
After about a half minute, I felt more like myself again, and started to get ready to move out. It suddenly came to me that it had all happened when we heard a horse approaching. I looked up to ask JL about it and saw that he was just putting Carson’s saddle on that Blaze faced outlaw horse. I guess that gelding had heard that we were a horse short and came back.
We went through Banks’ pockets looking for anything that would give us someone to contact, but there wasn’t anything other than the usual tobacco pouch and a few coins. So we piled rocks on him and said a few words over him, and then we headed back to town. I was more concerned with getting Carson back to a doc than I was catching Chambers. We’d have to get papers out on him and hope someone would catch him for us.
Hopefully, they’d catch him before he spent all that money, otherwise those folks who had bought land and town lots and buildings from him would be high and dry unless they could make deals with the de Vega family.
Chapter 20
The Town of Chamberton was a somber place when we rode in. Folks stood on the boardwalk, looking at us as if we could be three Angels sent from Heaven or three demons sent from hell, depending on whether or not we had recovered the money that they’d paid Chambers for their investments. We looked straight ahead and rode to the doctor’s office. I wanted Carson to get fixed up before we did anything else. He and Tate went inside and I rode on to the jail.
Claybrook greeted me with the same look as the other people in town. He had the look of hopeful anticipation, but behind it was the fear of disappointment. I didn’t drag out the suspense.
“Banks and three others dead, but Chambers is in the wind with all the money.” I told him. “One of the outlaws, Morrison was his name, thought he might be headin’ for El Paso.” Then I told him what had happened and how Banks came to be killed.
“There’s gonna be some mighty unhappy people around here when the de Vagas move them out.” He said. “And they’ve got every right to be.”
About that time, two men came through the door, one of whom I recognized as the proprietor of the general store, the other man was a stranger to me. Ethan introduced them as Bill Clarkston the store owner and Ryman Phlegg the town’s only lawyer. It seems that the claimants had appointed these two to be their delegates to deal with the law and the de Vega family.
I told the delegation, what had happened and what we knew about Chambers… or Hamilton, and all we knew about his alleged plan to go to El Paso, but that was before he and Banks had killed their accomplices. To say they were an unhappy and worried pair, would be an understatement. A lot of people were at risk of losing all they had, all they’d worked for and see their dreams crushed into the sand.
“Now, Mr. Clarkston, Mr. Phlegg,” I said, “I wouldn’t give up hope of us or some other lawman catching Chambers. The west is big, but it don’t keep secrets well. There are a lot of miles but few people to fill ‘em. So when someone comes up with a big pile of money and starts making moves, word gets around, and sooner or later they make a slip or someone remembers something. Believe me; I’ve seen it happen many times…. And don’t discount the idea of what the De Vega family might be agreeable to. They’ll hold title to a huge tract of empty land…. They’ll most likely want to make some deals to put that land to productive use.
JL Tate and Spade Carson came in from the doctor’s office, as the two men were leaving. The doc stitched Carson’s head wound and pronounced him to be afflicted with a concussion and be damned thankful for a thick skull. In other words, he’d be fine in time… maybe.
The other three Texas Rangers had taken the other prisoners to Amarillo for trial in the Federal Court and probable hanging. The only one left in the jail was the former marshal, who since he wasn’t a part of the gang, was being held on obstruction. I walked back to his cell and stood there looking at him.
“Mister.” I said. “By the way, what the hell is your name?” Claybrook called back to me saying that the man’s name was Parsons… Bob Parsons. “Well, Mister Bob Parsons, it looks like you’re out of a job, but you’re not out of possibilities. Now you can quit being an ass, and change your attitude, and we can go easy on you. Or we can transport you t
o Amarillo where you’ll go to trial with the others. I can guarantee that you’re not going to like that because everyone involved is likely to get the same sentence…. The noose.” He turned a sickly white and broke out in a sweat.
“Your biggest crime is being stupid. You went to work as a town marshal, but in reality you weren’t being a lawman, you were being your bosses lackey and looking the other way to the crimes he and his henchmen were committing. In my book, that makes you a crook as much as if you were killin’, robbin’ and tradin’ guns to those renegade Comanche.” I stepped back, took a hard look at him, then I turned around and walked into the other room.
Claybrook and I talked it over for a few minutes, and then I went back with the keys in my hand. I stood there jangling the keys for a few minutes. “Bob Parsons, this is your lucky day. Marshal Claybrook thinks you can be salvaged.” I stuck the key into the lock but didn’t turn it. “What we want you to do, Bob Parsons, is get on your horse… if you’ve got a horse and get the hell out of this part of Texas. Don’t even consider going to New Mexico because I’ll make sure you don’t stay there.”
He nodded submissively, and I turned the key and opened the door. He was given his gun, empty of course, and a few coins that had been in his pockets. I walked him over to the hotel, where he got his razor, some dirty clothes, and a few letters, then we went to the livery stable and saddled his horse. I told him to get out of town, and he made the dust fly, heading south.
“That arrogant mutt.” I told Claybrook, “There are people who just rub me the wrong way. He didn’t care what happened outside his town, or in town, as long as it didn’t offend the wrong people.” Claybrook just nodded… he knew I was just blowing off steam.