by Gene Shelton
Billy the Kid’s soft chuckle brought stares from both Tascosa men.
“Something tickle your fancy, Billy?” Jim asked.
“Just thinking. Looked like old Dave here was gonna crap his pants when that crowd started at us.”
Tom wrinkled his nose. “How the hell could you have told the difference?” he asked.
Santa Fe
Jim East leaned against the rough adobe wall of the Santa Fe jail as a deputy turned the key on Billy the Kid, Dave Rudabaugh and Tom Pickett. The gang the Las Vegas and Santa Fe newspapers had dubbed “The Forty Thieves” was out of business.
The Kid turned to Jim, his face solemn. “I won’t hang, Jim. I’ll die—you remember how those shackles broke—but I won’t hang.” He glanced around the barren dirt- floored cell. “God,” he said, “this is an awful place to put a man in.”
Jim shrugged. “Jails weren’t built by the same folks who design hotels, Billy. It wasn’t supposed to be a nice place.” Jim waved a hand in farewell, turned and walked into the office at the front of the jail.
Pat Garrett and Tom Emory waited at the sheriff’s desk. Garrett tucked a signed receipt for delivery of the prisoners into a pocket, then turned to Jim and Tom.
“Thanks for all you and your Tascosa men have done, boys,” Garrett said. He handed Jim two railroad tickets. “Your job is finished here. You and Tom take the train back to Vegas, fetch your horses, and rejoin your outfits at White Oaks. You’ve done your part in the Pecos War, as the newspapers are calling this affair.”
“Wasn’t much of a war, Pat,” Tom said. “I suppose we’ll be seeing you again?”
Garrett half smiled. “Most likely. I’m kind of fond of that Tascosa country.”
Jim and Tom strode from the jail into the teeth of a new storm. The north wind ripped at their coats and swirled fat flakes of wet snow around their ears.
“Reckon spring will ever get here?” Tom had to shout to be heard over the screech of the wind.
“I’m beginning to wonder, Tom,” Jim yelled back. “Let’s step on out. I don’t want to miss that train.”
FIVE
LX Ranch
March 1881
Jim East lounged in the saddle and tried to let the warmth of the early spring sun wash the lingering memories of the brutal winter from his mind.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do.
He had lost count of the number of cattle carcasses and scattered bones he had ridden past on his way back from New Mexico. Only the strongest stock survived the bitter, icy blasts that came in waves from beyond the Colorado Rockies. The weak did not. Baby calves froze at birth before they even had a chance to stand and nurse; some were pulled down by packs of marauding coyotes. Older cows weakened by age dropped and died at the edge of frozen water holes, the strength to keep moving drained from bodies that were almost skeletons.
Twice he had ridden past cattle bearing the Double Bit brand. The livestock had drifted more than three hundred miles from their home range in central Colorado, turning their tails to the storms and moving south until the weather broke or death caught up with them.
Many of the survivors were little more than racks of bone covered by loose, shaggy hides. Jim counted a half dozen brands from Kansas, Colorado, and the northern Texas Panhandle. The spring roundup was going to be a mankiller this year, he thought. LX and LIT cattle would be scattered all the way to central Texas. It would take a dozen wagon crews of ten to twenty men each more than six weeks to complete the gather, another two weeks for sorting and branding, and at least another week to trail them back to their home ranges.
It was that job that had summoned him from the Tascosa cowboys’ winter camp in White Oaks. The letter from Bill Moore had reached him in late February, along with a dozen letters in Hattie’s fine, flowing script.
Jim read Hattie’s letters again and again until he had them committed to memory. Moore’s letter was brief and to the point, but it was the key to the shackles that kept Jim East away from home. Moore wanted him as wagon boss of one of the spring roundup crews. Moore’s letter had several meanings to Jim East. First, he would get to see Hattie again. Second, he could get back to the work he liked best, punching cows. And third, as long as he headed a wagon crew he would draw an extra twenty dollars a month in wages. That would help toward buying the house in Tascosa.
Tom Emory had received a similar summons from his boss and had ridden with Jim from White Oaks until they hit LIT range. Charlie Siringo and the rest of the Tascosa crews remained at White Oaks to hunt the Lower Pecos Valley for Panhandle cattle stolen or drifted into New Mexico.
The sorrel horse between Jim’s knees had regained some strength with rest and grain during the stay at White Oaks, but the gelding was still drawn and lean. No amount of grain or even prairie hay would put meat back on a horse’s bones the way green grass would. The sorrel was still a bit weak from near starvation—and, Jim hated to admit, the abuse he had put the animal through during the hunt for Billy the Kid. But the sorrel now kept trying to break into a trot; the idea of home poured strength into its worn muscles.
Jim’s gaze swept the rolling hills as he rode. On the sunny slopes of creeks and steeper hills, sprigs of fresh green grass poked cautiously toward the blue sky overhead. The legacy of a long winter and heavy snows was not all bad. The moisture it left behind would nourish the land for weeks, maybe even months. The Panhandle range would have its best early season graze in years. Shallow springs that dried up in times of scant rainfall would be recharged by the snow melt. There would be plenty of water for the stock. It seemed to Jim that nature had a way of making something good come out of her meanest temper fits.
He was within forty miles of Tascosa and Hattie now. The thought helped the sun chase the last of the chill from his bones. Christmas in the spring was going to be a little strange, he thought, but a cowboy’s life tended to get that way a lot of times.
Jim pulled the sorrel to an abrupt stop. Lost in his thoughts of Hattie, he had almost missed the distant sound. He waited, his head cocked to the gentle southern breeze. A moment later he heard the sound again—the bawling of a small herd of cattle, and above that the higher squall of a yearling in distress.
The sounds came from a small box canyon a half mile away. The canyon opened into the northern branch of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. Jim hesitated for a moment, torn between his urge to get home and his cowboy’s instinct to investigate anything out of the ordinary on the range. The sounds from the canyon were not those normally made by free range cattle. It could be a drift crew at work, he thought. Or it could be something else.
The cattleman’s instinct won out. He reined the sorrel toward the canyon.
As he neared the rim of the cedar-studded canyon he caught the distinct scent of burning hair. Whoever was there was definitely using a hot iron.
Jim pulled the sorrel to a stop fifty feet back of the canyon rim, looped the reins around the limb of a low cedar, and shucked his rifle from the saddle boot. If this wasn’t a drift crew it might not be healthy to walk in unarmed. He climbed the final few strides to the top of the canyon wall, near a cluster of sandstone rocks. Jim eased himself behind the boulders and peered between them into the canyon below.
A yearling heifer was tied down on the sandy canyon floor. One man, his back to Jim, was burning a brand onto the heifer’s hip. A man on horseback was coiling his rope, ready to ride back into the herd of a dozen or so cattle bunched against the steep walls of the dead-end canyon. Both men carried pistols at their waists. The mounted man had a carbine stuffed into a saddle boot. The man afoot finished burning the brand, untied the heifer and shooed her toward the herd. Jim recognized the man as he turned.
It was young Dink Edwards from the LX, the man who had replaced Jim riding drift when Jim was sent to New Mexico.
Jim’s jaw muscles clenched as the mounted man began to shake out a loop. He didn’t recognize the man on horseback.
The freshly branded heif
er passed within a few yards of Jim’s position in the rocks. The still-smoking brand on her hip was a Spade Diamond. It took only four quick strokes of the iron to change an LX into a Spade Diamond.
Jim studied the other cattle milling in the canyon below. He spotted one pure maverick and two mother cows wearing the LX brand. The others had fresh Spade Diamonds on their hips.
As Jim watched, the mounted man whipped a flat loop under the heels of a breeder cow, jerked the slack and rammed spurs to his horse. The rope horse whirled and lunged. The rope snapped taut and yanked the cow’s hind feet from beneath her. She fell, bawling, onto her side. The roper dragged his catch toward the branding fire, his big roan horse straining against the weight of the downed cow.
Jim eared his Winchester to full cock. He had two rustlers dead to rights. The only trick now was to bring them in—and stay alive in the process. His best edge was that these two men were going to be mighty busy for the next few minutes trying to burn a brand on a full-grown Longhorn.
He inched his way through the boulders and found a narrow game trail that twisted down to the canyon floor through the jumble of rocks and wind-twisted cedars. The men below had their hands full with the big mother cow; Dink Edwards twisted her horns, holding her down while the roper dismounted and reached for an L-shaped running iron heating in the fire.
The cow bellowed in pain and outrage as the hot iron seared her hip.
Jim stepped to the edge of the clearing and raised his rifle.
“Hold it right there!” he yelled.
The two men started at the unexpected sound of a man’s voice. Edwards snapped his head around to stare in Jim’s direction. His grip on the cow slipped; she slung her head. One of the heavy horns thumped into Dink’s ribs and sent him sprawling. The roper dropped the branding iron and swung to face Jim, his hand on the butt of his holstered Colt.
“Don’t try it!” Jim called. The man’s hand came up with the pistol swinging toward Jim.
Jim squeezed the trigger. The forty-four-forty slug hammered the rustler in the chest, staggered him back a step. Jim levered in a fresh round and snapped a second shot; the man’s pistol fell as he spun and dropped face down in the dirt. The gunshots spooked the rustler’s horse. The roan bucked and lunged, the rope parted with a crack, and the horse whirled and raced away, empty stirrups flopping. Jim worked the Winchester action again and shifted the muzzle toward Dink Edwards. The young man clambered to his feet, dusty and dazed from the solid crack of the cow’s horn to his ribs.
Edwards stood, his face pale and eyes wide at the sight of the rifle pointed at his chest. He glanced at the downed man, then back at Jim.
“For God’s sake, East! You killed him!”
“He didn’t give me a choice.” Jim’s tone was cold and flat. “He played his top card and lost. Now it’s your turn, Dink. Fold or call.” He kept his gaze locked on Dink’s eyes. The look in a man’s eyes told more than his words did. Jim saw the dazed expression fade from the gray eyes, replaced by a flicker of anticipation and challenge. Dink’s right hand dangled near the butt of the Colt at his hip, fingers curled.
“Think it over, Dink. You may be fast with that sixgun, but nobody’s fast enough to beat a man holding a cocked rifle.”
A shadow of doubt flickered in Dink’s eyes. “What are you going to do now, East?”
“Depends on you, Dink. Reach for the pistol and I’ll blow your guts through your backbone. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”
“And if I give up, you’ll hang me?”
“No. You have my word on that. I’ll turn you over to Moore and let him decide.” Jim saw the sudden wash of relief in Edwards’s eyes. Curious , Jim thought; rustlers usually don’t want to face the men they steal from. “Unbuckle the gunbelt, Dink. Left hand. Let her drop and step back.” Edwards fumbled with the buckle a moment and the rig dropped at his feet. He stepped back and lifted his hands.
Jim cocked his head toward the dead man. “Who was he?”
“Name was Cochran. From up in the Cimarron Strip country. This whole thing was his idea, Jim. Not mine.”
Jim kept his eyes on Dink as he stooped, hefted the gunbelt and draped it over his shoulder. “I’ll let somebody else decide that.” He sighed. “Dink, you disappoint the hell out of me. You had the makings of a top hand. I never figured you for a thief.”
Dink Edwards shrugged. “Easy money. What now, Jim?”
“We mount up, catch Cochran’s horse and take him and these cattle to headquarters.” Jim lowered the rifle. “Dink, I give you my solemn promise that if you so much as twitch or even think about making a run for it. I’ll kill you. Understood?”
Edwards nodded. He seemed mighty calm for a man caught with his spoon in another man’s stew, Jim thought. He motioned with the rifle muzzle. “Come on. We’ve got some cattle and a dead man to move.”
LX Headquarters
Jim East watched as Bill Moore stepped from the porch and stared toward the small herd and the two horsemen approaching.
Jim led the roan. Cochran’s body was tied face-down across the saddle. Dink Edwards rode alongside Jim, helping haze the cattle toward the corrals behind the house. Jim kneed his gaunt sorrel toward the LX foreman.
“What happened?” Moore asked as Jim pulled his mount to a stop.
Jim gave Moore a quick version of the confrontation in the box canyon. Moore listened without comment, then grunted. He strode to the dead man, grabbed his hair and lifted the head. He studied the face for a moment, then let the lifeless face flop. “Never saw that one around here before.”
“Dink says his name’s Cochran. From up in the Strip.”
Several cowpunchers gathered around. A couple of the younger ones turned pale at the sight of the dead man. Three of the seasoned hands took a casual glance at the body, then mounted up and finished the job of penning the cattle.
Jim stepped from the saddle and motioned with the rifle muzzle for Dink to dismount. The horse wrangler gathered in the reins of the three horses, promised to take care of the mounts, and then to load the body in a spring wagon.
Moore turned to Dink. Jim thought he saw more worry than anger in the foreman’s gaze. Edwards looked calm and cool, confident. Moore studied the young rider for a moment, then snorted in disgust and turned away. “Damn a man who’d steal from his own brand,” he grumbled.
“What are you going to do with these two?” Jim asked.
Moore shrugged. “Should hang Edwards to a barn rafter. But I guess he deserves a trial. I’ll personally take him to the lockup in Mobeetie.“
Jim frowned. Mobeetie was better than a hundred thirty miles downriver. “Why Mobeetie? We’re a county now, with a sheriff and a jail right up the road in Tascosa.”
“Tascosa jail’s a joke,” the LX foreman growled. “That little adobe shack wouldn’t hold a ten-year-old chicken thief. He won’t get out of the Mobeetie hoosegow.” Moore turned to a couple of cowhands standing by. “You boys skin out one of those beeves,” he said. “We’ll need proof the brand’s been changed.”
Jim knew the changed brand would carry more weight in court than his testimony. It was almost a dead lock on a rustling case; the new brand obscured the old one on the hair side, but the old brand scar showed through on the skin side. “Might as well butcher one of those yearlings,” Moore added. “At least we can eat what we don’t need for evidence.” The foreman gestured to the ranch’s burly blacksmith. “Slim, take this little piss ant”—he jabbed a thumb toward Dink Edwards—”and chain him in the springhouse. He tries to get away, put a slug in him.”
“How about the dead one?” Jim asked.
“We’ll take him into Tascosa and get the judge to hold an inquest, then bury the thieving bastard somewhere, I guess.” Moore dismissed the rustling episode with a shrug. “Come on inside, Jim. I’ve got coffee on. We might even find something a little stronger.”
“Didn’t know there was anything stronger than LX coffee,” Jim said. He follow
ed the wiry foreman into the house.
Moore dug a bottle and two glasses from the bottom drawer of his desk, splashed a couple of fingers of whiskey into each and handed one to Jim. “You boys did a fine job out there in New Mexico, Jim,” he said. “Garrett sent me a long letter from Santa Fe telling all about it, and some stories he cut out of the Santa Fe and Las Vegas papers. Seems like you boys are legends out there. They’re talking about how the Tascosa men brought law and order to the Pecos River.”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t know about that. We didn’t get what we went after. Didn’t find any LX cattle, just picked up a few rustlers along the way.”
Moore smiled, but the light in his eyes was cool. “No matter. You and the boys made this outfit proud. Ready to get back to work now?”
Jim nodded, a wry smile on his lips. “It’ll be fun to chase cows again for a change. Haven’t met one yet who carried a Winchester.“
Moore spent the next few minutes briefing Jim on ranch affairs. The LX was still losing stock to cow thieves, but the remaining cattle and horses had come through the harsh winter in reasonably good shape. The winter herd kill was probably less than twelve percent, Moore said—not bad considering that other outfits had lost one cow out of every four.
“We did have us one hell of a drift,” Moore summed up. “We’ve got cattle scattered from here to down past the Caprock. Stock’s drifted onto our range from all the way up in Wyoming. Going to be a tough job getting them all rounded up and sorted out.”
“That’s what us cowboys get the big money for, boss,” Jim said. He took a sip of the bourbon. It was good Kentucky sour mash. It went down smooth and set off a warm glow in his belly.
“Jim, I want you to take a wagon crew down to the Pease River country,” Moore said. “We’ll have a lot of stock down that way. You’ll get wagon boss wages, of course.”