by Gene Shelton
“He’ll come, Pat. Quintana’s got a big case of the ‘fraids when it comes to Señor Sheriff East and his big smoothbore shotgun.” Jim sniffed the wind. “No snow close yet, but it won’t be long. In a week or so we’ll have our blizzard.” He turned and strode back inside. Garrett tagged along.
“Pat, do me one favor.”
“What might that be?”
“While your boys are in town, keep Ed King under a tight rein. There’s bad blood building fast between King and Lem Woodruff. I’d just as soon they didn’t decide to have a go at each other. I like my town quiet.”
Garrett shrugged. “I’ll do what I can. King does get a little antsy when he gets a snoot full of cheap whiskey. But he has his uses.”
Jim leveled a steady glare at Garrett. “Maybe he does, but I’d just as soon he didn’t put those uses to work around Tascosa.” Jim strode to the desk and picked out two indictments. “Let’s go see if we can’t pick up these boys while we’re waiting for that blizzard.”
Red River Springs
January 1885
Jim East scrunched deeper into his trail-worn buffalo hide coat, trying to escape the knife cut of the north wind.
The blizzard—Pat Garrett’s “hunting weather”—had wailed into the Panhandle two days ago, a white wall of wind-driven snow and below-zero cold. Drifts as tall as a man on horseback grew on the downwind side of thickets, cliffs, and any other natural or man-made structures that turned aside the bitter onslaught from the north.
The snowfall had stopped at midnight but the wind still raged, whipping ground flurries from the drifts. Overhead the sky showed a weak gray light as the clouds thinned. A bad turn of luck, Jim thought; now they’ll be able to see us coming. He shivered beneath the coat.
His hands ached and stiffened despite his thick leather gloves lined with rabbit fur. He had lost touch with his feet miles ago. Winter boots of thick mule hide, a full size too big in order to accommodate three pair of socks, seemed to do little to turn aside the cold. His only solace was that the men who rode with him suffered as much as he did.
He glanced over his shoulder at the line of men. Their horses plodded along the trail broken by Jim’s powerful buckskin gelding. Pat Garrett rode behind Jim, his lanky frame bent against the blast of wind; he was followed by Deputy L. C. Pierce and LS Rangers Ed King, Frank Valley, Charley Reasor, Barney Mason and Fred Chilton. Kid Dobbs, the one LS man Jim trusted enough to swear in as a special Oldham County deputy for this job, brought up the rear. Dobbs knew the Red River Springs country as well as Jim did.
Jim had failed to convince Garrett to leave three of the men behind. Jim didn’t trust King, Valley and Mason; the three men were gun-crazy, always looking for an excuse to drop a hammer on someone. Chilton and Dobbs were more like Jim. They saw no need for shooting when it could be avoided. Jim could only hope Garrett could keep the other three in line. King already had his rifle out and a round chambered, and they still had two miles to go before they reached the rock house at Red River Springs.
The posse was showing signs of trail wear. They had ridden out the night and covered better than forty miles in the pitch dark of a winter storm. The horses were hurting worse than the men. Jim doubted if the animals had more than one good burst of speed left in them.
The posse’s objective was a rock house built into the side of a hill by Kid Dobbs’s father-in-law many years ago. The house had been abandoned for the last five years except to provide temporary shelter for cowboys, hunters and drifters. Now it was occupied once again—by the men named in the indictments Jim carried in an inside pocket. Jim’s sources of information had been correct. Dobbs had confirmed the wanted men’s presence at the rock house the day before the blizzard hit. He had also brought back some unwanted news. There were a dozen horses in the rock corral beside the house. Fugitives Woods, Thompson and Gatlin had company. That tilted the odds if it came to a fight.
Dobbs urged his tiring horse alongside Jim’s mount. “When we top that rise up ahead they’ll be able to see us, Sheriff,” he said. “Can’t sneak up on ‘em from this side. To get behind ‘em, we’d have to ride another twenty miles.”
“And cross the river twice,” Jim added, thinking aloud. “The horses are nearly worn down now.”
“Then, by God, we go straight in,” Garrett said. “If we put the steel to these horses we’ll be on them before they can get organized.” Jim bit back a sharp retort. Garrett knew damn well who was wearing the badge in this posse. But Jim had to concede that Garrett had a point. There wasn’t any other way to tackle the bear’s den up ahead.
“All right, Pat,” Jim said. “But I don’t want any shooting unless we’re fired on. Is that clear?” Jim heard the challenge in his words.
Garrett’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Jim. The New Mexican turned his head and spat. “Yeah. I seem to recall how you just can’t stand the sight of blood, Sheriff.” Sarcasm lay heavy on his words.
Jim quit fighting the anger that rumbled in his gut. “Dammit, Garrett!” he snapped, “if I didn’t have a job to do I’d yank you off that horse and beat the living hell out of you right here and now!”
Garrett returned Jim’s stare for a moment, then shrugged. “Be interesting to see if you could handle that little chore. But like you say, we’ve work to do.”
Jim tore his gaze away from Garrett and turned to the others. He was seething inside. “Put the damn rifle up, King. I don’t want any weapons drawn until we’re within a hundred yards of that house. No shooting even then unless we’re fired on. Now, let’s go.” He touched the spurs to the buckskin.
The posse swept toward the house at the best speed the tired horses could manage in the snow. Jim saw no flashes of gunfire from the windows as they charged to within a hundred yards. So far so good, Jim thought. He pulled his Winchester from the saddle boot.
The Tascosa posse’s charge thundered past the house without a shot being fired. Behind the house Jim saw one man dump an armload of wood and sprint for the door. Kid Dobbs’s mount almost ran the man down. Moments later Jim had his men deployed behind and on either side of the house, where there were no doors or windows to fire from. Jim crouched beside Garrett behind a clump of junipers at the back of the house.
“East and Garrett are out there!” he heard the man who had dropped the firewood call from inside.
The words had barely reached Jim when he heard the door creak open. Tom Harris stepped into view around the side of the building. He was unarmed.
“You after me again, Jim?” Harris yelled.
“Not you, Tom,” Jim called back, “I have no warrant on you. We’re after Wade Woods, Charley Thompson and Bill Gatlin. The rest of you stay out of it and everybody will live a lot longer.”
Harris backed away. “Woods isn’t with us. I’ll talk to the other boys.”
Jim glanced at Garrett. The tall lawman had his jaw set and his rifle at full cock, muzzle pointed toward the house. “Give them a chance to talk it over, Garrett,” Jim said.
A few minutes later, nine men walked from the house, hands empty and held at shoulder height. Gatlin and Thompson stayed inside. Garrett barked orders for Chilton and Mason to herd the nine into the rock corral and keep an eye on them. Then Garrett turned to Jim. “Let’s go dig the other two out, Sheriff.”
“Wait a minute, Garrett,” Jim said. “I know Charley Thompson. Maybe I can talk him out of there.”
Garrett shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”
Jim stepped into the open and slogged through the snow to the side of the house. He turned the corner and pressed his body against the rough wall beside an open window. The muzzle of a rifle rested on the window sill.
“Charley, it’s Jim East,” he said.
There was no answer from inside.
“I don’t want to see you hurt, Charley.” Jim’s voice was steady and calm. “There’s no sense in getting yourself killed.”
“Jim, I ain’t done nothing, ain’t broke no law.” Thompson’s voice quavered. “What
ever that paper says I done, it ain’t right.”
“I know that, Charley. The only thing you’ve ever done wrong in your life, right up to this minute, is join that cowboy’s strike. Give yourself up and I’ll help you get a good lawyer.”
“I got no money for a lawyer.” Jim heard the note of desperation in the young cowboy’s voice.
“We’ll find a way, Charley. Have I ever lied to you before?”
“No. I reckon you ain’t.”
“Then you know I won’t be lying if I tell you this—if I have to come in there after you I’ll have to kill you. It sure would tear me up to have to tell your mother I shot you. It would break her heart, your getting killed for no good reason.”
A momentary silence fell in the conversation. Jim waited patiently.
“Jim?” Thompson’s tone was plaintive. “How’s Mom? I ain’t seen her in over a month.”
“She’s fine, Charley. Helping out the sick folks, working to get money together to build a church. She misses you, son. Asks about you all the time.” Jim paused to let the words sink in. Charley Thompson maybe had some drawbacks, but he was devoted to his mother. “She’s getting on in years, Charley,” Jim said. “What’s going to happen to her if you’re not around to help her out in her old age?” The silence returned. Jim let it drag on. Charley Thompson took a little longer than some folks to think things through.
Finally the door creaked open. Thompson stepped outside, hands raised. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Don’t shoot, Jim,” he said. “I’ll go along peaceful.”
“Good, Charley. I’m mighty relieved to hear that.” Jim edged his way to Thompson’s side, careful to keep out of direct view of the window in case Bill Gatlin had a twitch in the trigger finger. He draped an arm around Charley in fatherly fashion and led him toward the waiting posse. He felt the tension tighten the cowboy’s shoulders as Garrett and the others came into view.
“Don’t worry, Charley. They won’t hurt you. I won’t let them.” He led Thompson to where Barney Mason waited. “Mason, I’m putting Charley here in your care. You make sure nothing happens to him unless you want something worse to happen to you.” Mason’s face flushed; the man’s jaw muscles tightened, but he nodded silently.
“What you going to do now, Sheriff?” Kid Dobbs asked.
“Go back to the house and see if I can talk some sense into Bill Gatlin. That might take a while. Bill can be mighty stubborn at times.”
Jim stood beside the window for better than two hours, cajoling, pleading, even threatening. Bill Gatlin wasn’t in the mood to parley. Finally Jim gave up. He strode back to Garrett. “I can’t get through to him, Garrett,” he said. “Maybe you could talk him out of there.”
Garrett grunted. “I’ve heard enough talk for one day.” He turned to two of his riders. “Reasor, you and King climb up on the roof and start ripping off some of those rafter poles. Watch yourselves. He might start shooting.” Garrett raised his voice and called toward the house. “We’re coming in, Gatlin! You fire at one of my men or pull a gun on us and you’re a dead man!”
Jim waited, rifle at the ready, as the two LS Rangers clambered onto the sod roof held in place by weathered and weakened rafters. It took only a couple of strong tugs to break the rafters loose. Then Reasor and King yanked off the third pole. The hole in the roof was growing fast.
“Garrett!” The voice from inside held a note of desperation. “Hold off! Let me talk to East! Give me five minutes! Then either East or me will walk out alive!”
Jim came to his feet. Garrett reached out and grabbed his arm. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Jim yanked his arm free. “You heard the man. He wants to talk. I’ll talk.”
“He also said just one of you would come out alive. He’ll kill you, Jim. Bill Gatlin’s no Charley Thompson. He’d as soon shoot you in the gut as look at you. Better wait and let us smoke him out.”
Jim sighed. “It’s my gut at stake, Garrett. I’ll take the chance. If I don’t make it, you’ve got him on a murder charge—and you’ve got me out of your hair for good.” He raised his voice. “I’m coming in, Bill!”
Jim felt sweat dampen his palms despite the cold as he walked toward the house. Gatlin was dangerous enough to begin with. He would be worse now that he was cornered. Jim knew from the yellowed flyers in his old desk that Gatlin had killed two men up in the Dakota country. Jim lifted his rifle to waist level and toed the door open.
Bill Gatlin stood with his back to the far wall, a Colt revolver in each hand. The pistols were trained on Jim’s chest. The muzzle of Jim’s Winchester pointed straight at Bill Gatlin’s belly.
The two men stood, both poised to kill, and stared into each other’s eyes for several seconds. Jim felt the throb of blood through the arteries in his neck as the tension built. The bores of the pistols in Gatlin’s hands seemed to grow bigger in the strained silence.
“Well, Bill,” Jim finally said, “what’s it going to be? You put the guns down and we don’t have to kill each other.” Jim felt his heart hammer against his ribs. Then a curious calm settled over him. His muscles relaxed and his heartbeat slowed. If it ends here , he thought, at least I have friends to watch over Hattie. “I don’t want to kill you, Bill,” Jim said. “I sure as hell don’t want you to kill me.
Gatlin’s eyes narrowed. “I’d rather die here, clean and quick.” The outlaw jerked his head toward the back of the house. “Those LS Rangers out there’d hang me to the nearest tree.”
Jim tightened his finger on the trigger until he felt the delicate balance of sear against hammer spring. “Think it through, Bill,” he said, his voice soft. “You shoot me and they’ll lynch you for sure. But if you’re determined to get yourself dead, a rope would be a damn sight quicker than a Winchester slug in the belly. I’ve seen gutshot men die, Bill. It takes a long time and it hurts like hell.”
Indecision flickered in Gatlin’s eyes.
“If you hand me those Colts,” Jim said, “I promise you’ll get to Tascosa alive. You’re in a box, Bill, and I’m in it with you. There’s no need for this.”
The muzzles of the pistols wavered. “You swear you won’t let them lynch me, Jim?”
“You have my word on it.”
Gatlin’s shoulders slumped. He lowered the pistols, eased the hammers and handed the weapons to Jim. “I guess I trust you to give me a fair shake.”
Jim sighed in relief as he tucked the Colts into his waistband. “You can trust me.” He turned his back on the wanted man. It was chancy, but Jim didn’t think Gatlin had a hideout gun—or would shoot a man in the back. “I’ll go out first, just so nobody out there makes a mistake.”
THIRTEEN
Tascosa
April 1885
Jim East filed the last of the wanted notices that had come on the noon mail coach from Dodge City, leaned back in his chair and stretched the stiffness from his shoulders. Paper work was a necessary part of the job, but Jim never had developed a taste for it.
He listened for a moment to the good-natured banter coming from the cell. Bill Gatlin, Charley Thompson, Jesus Quintana, and two other prisoners played a harmless game of poker, idling away the time until the spring session of district court opened in Tascosa. The game was harmless because the rules were simple. It was penny ante, table stakes, and when one man had won all the money they divided it equally and started over again.
It was getting downright crowded in there, but some space would be opening up soon. Attorney D. B. Swarthmore had agreed to defend Charley Thompson free of charge and was taking Jesus Quintana’s case for the princely fee of four dollars. Jim had loaned Jesus two of those dollars. Gatlin had decided to plead guilty and do his time. The others had different lawyers and, Jim figured, a fifty- fifty chance of getting cut loose. The Panhandle Cattleman’s Association was probably going to take another licking in district court.
Jim stood as Pat Garrett strode into the office. The New Mexico lawman’s frown exaggerated the weat
her lines in his angular face. Jim nodded a greeting.
“Just came by to say adios, Jim,” Garrett said. “The Rangers are disbanded. I’m headed back to New Mexico.”
Jim’s brows arched in surprise. “Rangers disbanded? Mind if I ask why?”
Garrett snorted. “Hell, Jim. You had it right all the time. The association didn’t want me to bring in live prisoners. It took me a while to figure that out, but it finally soaked in. I just got back from an association meeting over in Mobeetie. I told them if they wanted a hired gun there were plenty of them out there, but I wasn’t doing any killing for them.” Garrett offered a hand. Jim took it. “Barney and I’ll be pulling out for home this afternoon,” Garrett said. “Jim, we’ve had our differences. But, by God, you’re one of the best lawmen I’ve ever worked with. No hard feelings over those little squabbles?”
“None here, Pat. Good luck.”
Garrett turned to walk away.
“Pat,” Jim asked, “what about the rest of the boys in the Home Ranger company? Are they going to form up again with a new leader?”
Garrett shook his head. “The association’s tired of spending the money and not getting any dead men in return. I suppose the rest of the boys will go back to work punching cows on their old outfits.” He touched fingertips to his hat brim in a final salute. “See you around, Sheriff East.”
Jim watched the lawman mount up and rein his horse toward the trail to New Mexico, Barney Mason at his side. Jim had to admit he wasn’t especially sad to see the two men go; he just wished they had taken the rest of the LS Ranger outfit with them. About the only thing the Rangers had really accomplished was to make matters worse between the big landowners and the little men. And with the likes of King, Valley and Lang still hanging around, things could go from touchy to hurt in a hurry.
Jim made one last check on his prisoners, found everyone as fat and happy as could be expected of men behind bars, and strode from the courthouse into the unseasonably warm spring sun.