Chaparral Range War (9781101619049)

by Richards, Dusty

  “There’s an election next Tuesday and after that we’re gonna use a broom on this place.”

  “I’m a great sweeper. I’m proud to be here to help you. I ain’t never forgot when we went after Red Carson and his gang. You saved my bacon. I sure owed you one more round.”

  “What do you do in San Angelo these days?”

  “Chief deputy for the sheriff. I told him I had to go get you out of the ditch. You recall Hank Shiver? That’s the sheriff I work for, and the county pays me every month. Can you believe that?”

  “Not really.”

  The tall blonde Guthrey recalled from the last trip came into the kitchen in a fluffy robe and shouted, “Hi!” to him. The cook brought Chuck a big breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and ham on a platter and offered Guthrey some. He declined. They sipped coffee and talked in general terms.

  His future operations did not need any more publicity. Blondie asked about Dan, and Guthrey told her he was working the boy too hard.

  She laughed and never mentioned Steffany.

  They left the house, took the horse to the livery, and left the packsaddle and panniers there. Chuck threw his own saddle on the bay and they rode back to the ranch.

  As they rode away, Guthrey told Chuck about the gold find. It sent Chuck to whistling. Then he explained how Cally and Dan’s father was killed and how he’d gotten involved. They were back to the ranch by then.

  When they rode up, Cally came out smiling and Chuck threw his hat in the air. Dismounted, he ran over to hug her and swung her around. Then he kissed her on the forehead and went to talking a hundred miles an hour about how she should have waited for him before she got married. She was in stitches and bent over laughing.

  “Tell him some lies,” Guthrey said to her and took both horses to the corral. Noble joined him.

  “Who was doing all the whooping down there?”

  “My man Chuck. He’s wild and a big tease. I need to ask you all about Jim Burroughs.”

  “Mining man. Not out in town much. He used to be an engineer for the big mine at Tombstone. I don’t know much, but he lives like he has some money. He lives here in town. Pretty much keeps to himself. Why?”

  “Would their father have known him?”

  “Yeah, I’m certain he would have.”

  “Don’t say a word, but Burroughs just made my A-list of suspects for the killer of Harold Bridges.”

  “My lands, why him?”

  “He talked to Mitchem at the bank about how, if the Bridgeses wanted to sell out, Burroughs wanted that place more than Whitmore.”

  “I’ll be doggone.”

  “Not a word to anyone, but we need to keep an eye on him.”

  “I guess anyone can kill someone, but he would have been low on my list. But I see how he could have done it. He’s rode all over these hills looking for signs of minerals. No one would even think about his coming or going. How do you prove it?”

  “Trick him. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way.”

  “I learn anything, I’ll sure tell you. Damn, how did you think to ask Mitchem about it?”

  “It came to my mind right there in the bank with the gold. I got to thinking, if someone wanted to buy a place and needed a loan or inside track, why not talk to a banker about it?”

  “You got an inquiring mind, you know that?”

  “I need one. Thanks, Noble.” He headed for the house to stop Magio from stealing his wife. Chuckling to himself, he had just now thought of a plan to test his suspect. But it would keep until their roundup of all the bad guys was over.

  Chuck was drinking Cally’s coffee and sitting across the table from her, telling her Ranger stories about Guthrey. Oh, man, Chuck was a great storyteller and was obviously enjoying every minute of Cally’s company.

  “Don’t believe a word he tells you.” Guthrey sat down, and she shook her head as she got up to pour him a cup.

  “Oh, I’m learning a lot about your past.”

  “That Phil was an ornery guy back then,” Chuck said. “I bet he whirled you around polkaing and made you so dizzy he asked you to marry him and you said yes.”

  “That was it.” She laughed and refilled cups.

  “Pard, you are one lucky guy. You’ve got a beautiful wife and a nice ranch with a gold mine.”

  “What did the banker say?” Cally asked.

  “Maybe you could finally pay off your loan now.”

  “He didn’t say that.”

  Guthrey shook his head. “No, but he was very excited for the two of you.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “And my husband as well.”

  He nodded at her. “Where’s Dan?”

  “He and those two day men we hired are checking cattle and will finish that up today. He told Noble to guard the place.”

  “Fine, no problems. The three of us are going to ride around the next few days. I want Chuck to get a feel for this country before we do our thing.”

  “Good idea,” she said. “I’ll feed you some lunch. He said he had a big breakfast this morning.”

  Things were going smoothly. When his other two Rangers arrived he’d be in great shape.

  After lunch he took Chuck up to the mine. The men were getting ready to blast some more and Chuck was impressed. “There’s lots of gold showing.” Guthrey also told him where Bridges was found shot and all about the unrecorded murder.

  “You have a suspect?” Chuck asked as they squatted on the ground.

  “I found one this morning,” he said and explained how he did it.

  “You’re too lucky these days. As I said earlier, your wife is wonderful, you have a great ranch, and now gold.”

  “And an election for change I must win next Tuesday.”

  That evening Todd Bowles arrived. A rancher in a buckboard brought him out to the Bridges Ranch. Guthrey thanked the man for delivering him.

  “I’ll be here Wednesday afternoon with a stout horse and my long rifle to help you all. Nice to meet you, Mr. Bowles.”

  “It’s good to see you, Phil. Sounds like you have this entire country behind you. He was telling me all that you’ve done so far.” Bowles shook his head.

  They went through the wife introduction. Chuck hugged Bowles. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other. They played poker, dime limit, and went over the whole business in Arizona until Guthrey showed them their beds in the bunkhouse.

  Back at the house, Guthrey undressed and was soon snuggling in bed with his sensuous wife. Oh, he was glad he’d found her. Whew, he couldn’t believe all the great things that had happened in his life since the near shoot-out. Damn!

  TWENTY-SIX

  GUS AGNEW, UNDER a bushy mustache, arrived the next day. A short man in his forties, he wore a brown business suit, white shirt, and tie. He hardly looked like a lawman, but of the four of them, Guthrey considered him the toughest of them all. He was a few years older than the other three, and they’d served under him as their captain.

  They went through lengthy meetings with the three law clerks about who would be where and how they would arrest them. Whitmore’s was the prime site. Guthrey wanted Chuck to lead that posse, and Noble was going with him. He wanted Gus to get the two raiders hiding in the Chiricahuas, and those ranchers from Farnam were his choice to help him. Noble said he knew a breed tracker who had been up there a lot with the army and could find them easy.

  “What in the hell are you going to do while we’re all out working?” Chuck finally asked him.

  “I’m going to ride up to the ranch of the former sheriff, Killion, north of Soda Springs and arrest him for malfeasance of his duties. And Todd will be leading another group going after the rapist and his gang.”

  They all nodded. The plan was set.

  On Saturday, they attende
d the supper and dance at the Cane Springs Schoolhouse, and there was a beehive of talk about things. Folks visited with Guthrey’s new bride and many talked privately to him about helping his efforts.

  He reminded everyone, “Be sure to vote Tuesday or we can’t do anything.”

  It sounded to him like they’d have plenty of help. He wasn’t saying much that would forewarn them, but the raiders weren’t dumb and might be better prepared than he imagined. He hoped that loss of lives would be very small or none. That worry niggled at him.

  When he danced with Cally and she looked so happy, he was bursting proud of her. Her presence was enough to make him satisfied. He’d done the best thing in his life, marrying her. If things held together for an election, his appointment went through with no problems, and the roundup all worked, he’d be in tall cotton. That wouldn’t make much sense to a non-farmer, but tall cotton had lots more bolls on it than bumblebee cotton. Those were the plants the bumblebee had to bend over to pollinate the blooms. Amused with himself to be recalling that old saying, Guthrey led Cally outside into the yard with the bonfire.

  “Guthrey,” someone on horseback shouted from back in the shadows at the edge of the grounds. Without a thought, Guthrey shoved Cally aside and drew his gun in one swift move, trying to locate the challenger. The fire’s glint off the barrel of the shooter’s weapon gave him a target, but another gun barked twice before Guthrey or the challenger could fire a shot, and the shooter was pitched forward off his shying horse.

  “I seed him all evening kinda slinking around,” Todd said, holstering his gun. “Sorry your missus had to get in on it.”

  Guthrey pulled her up to her feet. “I didn’t see him in time. You all right?” he asked his wife.

  “I’m fine. Is he dead?” She brushed off her dress with her hand.

  “I’ll be surprised if he ain’t, or at least halfway there,” Guthrey said as they joined the onlookers around the still body.

  A man stood up from checking the fallen form and shook his head. “He’s dead.”

  Guthrey made Cally stay back and stepped over among them. “Anyone know him?”

  “Called himself Denver something. He worked for Whitmore,” a rancher said, pointing at the dead man. Another man nodded.

  “He sure ain’t going to tell us much,” Bowles said. “Sorry, Miss Cally.”

  “I’m fine, and so is Phil. That’s all that matters. Glad you were so attentive.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Guthrey said, “I want his body taken to the funeral parlor in Steward’s Crossing and a justice of the peace hearing held on his death.”

  “Don’t worry, Bowles. What you did was necessary,” a man said. “And we’ll all testify for you.”

  “Todd understands,” Guthrey said. “It’s the way the law should work.”

  * * *

  IF THERE WERE any more raiders in the crowd that evening, they didn’t show themselves. Though Guthrey had had nothing to drink, the danger that exposed Cally concerned him and it felt like it sobered him up. He also needed this matter of the shooting to be settled in a legal way.

  Guthrey drove her home instead of staying the night. He felt a lot more comfortable being back at the ranch. Chuck Magio, Guthrey decided, must have found a generous widow woman since he wasn’t around.

  Chuck didn’t make it back till midmorning Sunday, and the rest of the Rangers chided Magio pretty hard about him getting lost. The day passed with the crew busy feeding the spare horses that folks had delivered and setting up tents for those coming from a long distance.

  Monday passed uneventfully. Guthrey expected no problems. But the day went by slowly. The hands on his gold watch seemed to turn slowly as well. There would be some tough problems for him to solve in the coming days, but he wanted all that behind him. The thing that concerned him most after the try on his life Saturday night was thinking of how Cally might have gotten hurt in his company. He needed to minimize the chance of that happening altogether. It would be a hard thing to do.

  The Rangers played cards. Low limits and lots of fun, card tossing and storytelling. Todd recalled a time when they were chasing a couple of horse thieves and had run into a hornets’ nest.

  “Why, Guthrey’s eyes were so swollen from the wasp stings, he couldn’t even see them when we rounded those two up.”

  “Or the time,” Guthrey said, “when we were sneaking up on the guy’s house to make an arrest and Chuck fell in the old outhouse hole.”

  “Yeah, and you guys wouldn’t pull me out by your hands. Gus went and got someone else’s rope to do that. I’ll raise.”

  “Well, you did stink pretty bad.”

  “What about the time we charged the barn we thought that guy was hiding in and ran into that skunk? He sprayed us all. That was almost as bad as the dunking Chuck took.”

  “I ruined a damn new pair of boots the day we arrested that skunk,” Gus complained. “Texas didn’t pay me for them either. That pencil pusher said, ‘Aw, it’ll wear out,’ but it never did.”

  Guthrey spoke to most of the arrivals coming early to his place. They’d butchered a fat yearling and put him on a spit to cook. He hired a young Mexican boy to turn it and keep the fire built up. Cally told Guthrey that she hoped the meat held out.

  “We can always kill another one,” Guthrey decided.

  “I just didn’t want to be short,” she said to him privately. Three ranch wives were helping her make pies, cobbler, and bread. Her range was getting a workout and so were the Dutch ovens outside the house. All in all he felt they were doing a great job.

  Election day came. The ranch looked like a military base, buzzing with activity. Guthrey prepared to go to Soda Springs that the afternoon and be there for the counting of the ballots. He had not been in the territory long enough to be considered a voter, so he had to abstain.

  Reports came in all day: Things were quiet, and the deputy U.S. marshals had things well in hand at all the election sites. Cally and Dan were staying behind to handle things at the ranch. Guthrey and Noble were going to ride over to Soda Springs, and Gus planned to go along. Chuck and Todd had gone to Steward’s Crossing for something.

  Guthrey kissed Cally good-bye, and the three left for the county seat. The summer heat was settling in on the long days of June. The ride into Soda Springs was hot, hot enough that they had to mop their faces a lot. A large crowd had formed around the courthouse. The bars were doing a good business. There was no room to hitch another horse at the racks.

  Folks spoke to Guthrey when he rode up to the courthouse. He asked a man on the street who he recognized whether the sheriff was there.

  “Why, hell no. He’s rarely here, so why be here today?”

  Guthrey nodded and rode on. No sign either of the big ox of a deputy he’d tangled with. He handed Noble the reins to his horse and went inside the courthouse to see if Tommy was working the key. He found him busy taking down messages and held back so as not to disturb him. The halls were full of people, and he could hear the prisoners bitching back in the jail.

  “Be right with you,” Tommy said, busy writing out an incoming telegram message.

  From the way Tommy sounded, Guthrey thought the man wanted to talk to him. Guthrey stood with his back to the wall, nodding to people he recognized who came by in the congested halls. The note that Tommy handed him read, Watch your back, they plan to shoot you down today.

  With a slow nod of his head, he thanked Tommy and stuck the note in his vest pocket. He eased outside and moved between Gus and Noble’s horses.

  “Tommy gave me a note in there,” he said in a soft voice. “Says they plan to kill me today.”

  Gus frowned and Noble swore under his breath, “Them bastards better not try.”

  Standing in the rising heat, Guthrey moved to mount his horse. They’d better have gotten up e
arly and dressed nice. He wanted them to look good on their way to hell.

  “Where’re we going?” Noble asked him when he was mounted.

  “Doc’s office. He won’t mind. We can put our horses in his corral, water and feed them.”

  Gus looked over the crowd and then he nodded in agreement. “Lots of folks here. We’ll need to pick our ground to stand on.”

  “It may be another bluff. Killion looks like he’s avoiding town so far.” Then Guthrey spoke to a man who told him, “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. We’ll need it.” He tipped his hat to a farmwife who waved at him.

  At Doc’s house-office, he dismounted and handed Noble the reins.

  Doc’s wife, Kathryn, answered the door. “How are you, sir?”

  “Good. We’d like to stay around town for the election results and not be too obvious.”

  “Fine. How is your wife?”

  “Doing well, ma’am. The two men with me are Noble, who you’ve met, and Gus Agnew, a friend from Texas.”

  “I think you are a shoo-in,” she said. “You have aroused the public against all these raiders.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We hope so anyway.”

  “Make yourself at home.”

  “We may simply stay on the porch.”

  “You’re welcome to the entire house.”

  “Thank you.” He went to tell his associates.

  “Noble, put the horses out back and we’ll stay here. I’d leave them saddled.”

  Gus asked Noble if he needed any help with them and the man shook his head. Gus thanked him and went to join Guthrey. They found seats on the old furniture on the porch, which was shaded from the hot afternoon sun.

  “There is no law in this place?” Gus asked, taking a seat on the old couch.

  “There’s that big clown who tried to arrest me. But he does little of anything except drink.”

  “How will you handle this?”

  “I’ll need some real deputies.”

  Gus frowned at him. “Do they have the money to hire them?”