Running Irons

by J. T. Edson

  “Sure pleased you did,” Calamity stated. “Man, there was times when I figured I was due for wings and a harp.”

  “You. Shucks, only the good die young they do say,” grinned Danny.

  “One more remark like that out of you and we’ll see about it,” she snorted. “What was you fixing in to do, sneaking down the slope?”

  “Take ’em. I’d seen their hosses when they jumped us and recognized those four when I peeked over the top of the rim. Reckoned that Choya and his bunch’d be in the house and aimed to sneak in then take ’em by surprise. Only you come through the window afore I made it. Which same I was lucky, didn’t know about that jasper in the backhouse.”

  “The Ysabel Kid’d’ve checked on it afore he moved in.”

  “Which same I aimed to do,” Danny told her calmly. “He taught me all he knows about tracking and things.”

  “Which same I never saw the Kid show any sign of knowing about—things,” grinned Calamity. “Though he does know some about tracking.”

  “Anyways you stopped me when you came through the window and that jasper came out the backhouse like a coon off a log when he heard the whooping and hollering, and I figured to stay hid until I saw what might be needed. How come you-all was fool enough to get caught, Calam, gal?”

  Quickly, her sentences liberally sprinkled with a flow of invective that brought an admiring grin to Danny’s lips, Calamity told her story. Nor did his admiration lessen when he heard of the manner in which she prevented the men from recognizing her true potential by donning a skirt and acting as the unsuspecting lady of the house. Take it any way a man looked, old Calamity was quite a gal and lived up to the flattering comments Dusty, Mark and the Kid made about her after their return from the first meeting. Not many women would have shown her presence of mind. Fact being, few women, even in the self-reliant West, could have handled things so efficiently or come out of the situation which had faced Calamity as well as she did.

  On reaching the top of the slope, Calamity looked to where Danny’s horse stood by a large blueberry bush. It came as almost a surprise to see that Danny did not ride a paint like his brother’s personal mount. However, the horse looked to be a real fine critter, sixteen hands high and showing good breeding. The horse had a coloration Calamity could never remember seeing before, a light red, almost pinkish roan with a pure white belly.

  “What in hell color do you call that?” she asked.

  “A sabino,” Danny explained. “Got him below the line. Mexican cowhands go a whole heap on them for go-to-town hosses and for work.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” sniffed Calamity. “Looks a mite flashy to me. Got me a buckskin with the outfit that’d run his legs down to the shoulders in a straight mile race.”

  “Got me a week’s furlough to come when I pull in from this lot,” Danny answered, meeting her challenge. “Happen you can lay hands on your crow-bait, we’ll run us a race.”

  “You got a deal. Dobe Killem, which same being my boss, told me to wait in Austin for two weeks, grab some work if I could to keep me busy until he brings the rest of the bunch in.”

  “So you’ll be in for a week with nothing to do,” drawled Danny, taking up his sabino’s reins. “Just like me.”

  “Must be fate in it someplace.” Calamity answered, eyeing him with interest. “You got a steady gal?”

  “Not steady. Always figgered a young lawman shouldn’t get too close or attached until he knows if he’s going to make the grade or not.”

  “Which same’s as good an excuse as any.”

  “Sure,” Danny agreed. “Now let’s get down there and tend to those four Mexicans, shall we?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Calamity answered.

  On returning to the cabin, Danny attended to his horse. Then, with Calamity at his side, he returned to the front of the cabin and prepared to start the distasteful task of cleaning up.

  “Get their tarps, Calam,” he ordered, “and bring one of their ropes.”

  Normally Calamity might have objected to a new acquaintance, especially a young man, giving her orders. Yet she figured Danny knew what he was doing, and anyways she could always object if she decided he did not. Calamity went to each horse in turn and removed its tarpaulin-wrapped bundle from behind the saddle’s cantle. Unrolling the first bundle, she handed the tarp to Danny and, with an express of distaste on his face, he went to work. First spreading the tarp on the ground, Danny pulled Choya’s body into the center of it. Wrapping the body completely inside the tarp, Danny took the rope from Calamity and bound the bundle so the jolting of the wagon would not uncover its grisly contents. Next came a difficult and not too pleasant task, loading the body into the rear of Calamity’s wagon.

  “I’ll lend you a hand,” the girl said her voice just a mite strained.

  “Gracias, Calam. Take the feet, I’ll handle the head.”

  Between them, Calamity and Danny lifted first one, then the remainder of the tarpaulin-wrapped shapes into the rear of the girl’s wagon, laying them side by side in the space at the back. With that done, the two of them cleaned up, as well as they could, the traces of the fighting. Calamity gathered up the shattered glass while Danny brought shovel-loads of dirt to cover the bloodstains. Finally they stood back and looked over their work.

  “I took a bath when I arrived,” the girl remarked. “Damned if I don’t feel all dirty again.”

  Danny put a hand to his bristle-covered chin. “And me. I sure hate to have whiskers growing on me. Say, is there any water inside?”

  “I’ll boil some for you. Then while you’re shaving, I’ll go take a bath,” Calamity suggested. “And then I’ll cook us a meal.”

  “Sounds like a real good notion,” Danny answered.

  Opening his bedroll, Danny dug into his warbag and collected his shaving kit. Calamity poured him out some hot water and headed for the swimming hole while he stripped off his shirt to wash and shave. Having been hunting the Comancheros alone for the past three days, Danny had not found time to wash and shave, or even take off his clothes. He felt a whole heap better with the growth of whiskers and some of the trail dirt removed from his hide. On Calamity’s return, Danny took a change of clothes and headed for the swimming hole. All in all, he both felt and looked a whole heap better on his return. Nor had Calamity wasted her time, but set to and cooked a real good meal for him.

  “You cook just like Mark said,” he told Calamity after the meal, having been too hungry during it to waste time in talking. “Man gets tired of stream water and jerky.”

  “Reckon he does,” she agreed then grinned. “You mean ole Mark said something nice about me?”

  “Shucks, Mark always talks real high and respectful about you, Calam.”

  “I just bet he does,” smiled the girl.

  “There’s no chance of making Austin today,” Danny remarked, looking out of the window at the darkening range. “Happen we start at sun-up, we ought to reach it afore noon tomorrow.”

  “That’s how I saw it,” agreed Calamity. “Let’s go tend the stock. I reckon we’ll leave the four Comanchero hosses here to pay for the damage I did to the window.”

  Danny gave his assent and they went out to feed, water and bed down the horses. On their return, Calamity lit a lamp while Danny laid his saddle carefully on its side by the wall and unpacked his bedroll.

  “It’s going to be a mite chilly for whoever sleeps in here,” Calamity said, glancing at the shattered window.

  “You take the bedroom then,” replied Danny, courteous to the core as became a Southern gentleman.

  “Shuckens no. Let’s do it fair,” answered Calamity, taking a coin from her pocket and flipping it into the air. “Heads I have the bedroom, tails you get it. Dang it, Danny, it’s tails. We said best of three, didn’t we?”

  “Why sure,” grinned Danny, taking the coin and flicking it up again. It landed on the table with a metallic clink.

  “Three out of five, we said, didn’t
we?” asked Calamity, looking at the exposed tails side.

  Once more the coin sailed into the air. Shooting out a hand, Calamity caught the spinning disc of metal and brought it down to stand on its edge in a crack on the table top.

  “Land-sakes a-mercy,” she said innocently. “It looks like we’re due for a stand-off.”

  “What’ll we do in that case?” asked Danny, just as innocently.

  “Didn’t Mark teach you nothing about—things?”

  “You know, Calam, gal,” Danny drawled, blowing out the lamp. “He just might have done at that.”

  Almost an hour later, just before she went to sleep, Calamity gave a grin. One thing was for sure. Dusty Fog’s kid brother could sure act like a man full grown.

  Chapter 5 BREAK UP THAT COW STEALING, DANNY

  SID WATCHHORN EASED HIS ARM IN THE SLING, glanced at the rider and wagon which entered the compound and then walked back into the office.

  “Danny’s here, Cap’n,” he said.

  “Alone?” asked Murat, seeing his chance of making the Caspar County investigation—and getting away from the tedium of office work—depart.

  “Never thought he’d bring any of ’em in alive,” Sid answered. “Only he’s not alone. Got a right pretty lil gal along with him, driving a six-hoss Conestoga.”

  Throwing a glance at Sid, the Ranger captain tried to read the tanned, leathery face for a hint that his wounded man made a joke. He saw nothing, which did not entirely surprise him. However, Murat knew handling the ribbons of a six-horse Conestoga wagon took skill of a high degree. Coming to his feet, Murat walked from the office and looked in the direction of the approaching party.

  “I told you so,” said Sid in doleful delight, “only you didn’t believe lil ole me.”

  “Does anybody?” grunted Murat and walked to meet his other Ranger. “Howdy, Danny. We got a telegraph from Sandy up to Two Trees, said you’d gone on after Choya and his bunch.”

  “Huh huh!” Danny answered.

  “Catch ’em?”

  The words came out more as a statement than a question. No Ranger worth his salt would leave the trail of the men who killed one of his partners and wounded another. Yet Murat could see no sign of the Comanchero’s horses. Then his eyes went to the wagon’s box, studying the various scars on its timber. Two of the bullet holes looked newly made.

  “I caught ’em. They’re in the back of Calam’s wagon.”

  Walking by his captain, Sid headed to the rear of the wagon and started to unfasten its canopy’s lashings. Calamity jumped down from the box and joined the Ranger at the rear.

  “Let me lend you a hand,” she said. “You look like you need one.”

  “Her husband come home early,” answered Sid.

  “That’s allus the way,” Calamity commiserated.

  “How many in there, ma’am?”

  “Four, all there was. And happen you don’t want the other wing busting quit calling me ‘ma’am’.”

  One of the young wranglers dashed up and took charge of Danny’s horse. It said much for Danny’s trust in the youngster that he allowed the sabino’s welfare to the boy’s hands. However, Danny knew he could rely on the youngster to care properly for the big horse and that he must give his report to his captain as quickly as possible.

  “Let’s go into the office, Danny,” Murat suggested as the youngster led the sabino away.

  Following Murat into the office, Danny took a seat at the desk. There was nothing fancy about the room in which the Rangers of Company “G” handled their paper-work and planned their campaigns against the criminal elements of Texas. Just a desk, its top scarred by spur-decorated boot heels and burned by innumerable cigar and cigarette butts, with a few papers sharing the top with the first edition of the famous “Bible Two,” the Texas Rangers’ list of wanted men that would be brought out each year and read by the sons of the star-in-the-circle far more than they ever studied the original book. Some half-a-dozen chairs stood against the walls, two more at the desk. A safe, its door open and shelves empty, graced one wall, a stove facing it across the room. On either side of the door leading to the cells at the rear of the building were respectively a bulletin board containing wanted dodgers from all over the State, and a rack holding some dozen assorted Winchesters, Spencer carbines and ten-gauge shotguns, all clean and ready for use.

  It was not a room conducive to long, leisurely discussion, but a plain, functioning, workingman’s premises where business was dealt with speedily and without waste of time.

  “Tell me about it,” Murat ordered as they took their seats. He took out the office bottle and poured two drinks, offered the young Ranger a cigar, and settled down to learn how Danny handled things on the hunt for the Comancheros.

  A feeling of pride came to Danny as he took the drink. It had become a custom in Company “G” that Murat offered a Ranger who came in from a successful chore a drink before starting business. Usually it would have been the senior man making the report and collecting the drink, but this time—for the first time—Danny found himself receiving Murat’s unspoken approbation.

  Quickly Danny told Murat all that happened from the time the Comancheros ambushed his party. By questions; knowing his men, Murat never expected to learn the one making the report’s share of the affair without probing; the captain found out how Danny handled things with his sergeant dead and more experienced colleague wounded. Nodding in approval, he listened to Danny tell how the trailing of the Comancheros came to its conclusion at the Jones place. The captain’s eyebrows lifted slightly as he learned the identity of the girl on the wagon. It figured, happen a man gave thought to the matter; few other women in the West could handle a six-horse Conestoga wagon.

  “Four, and the two you downed when they hit you,” Murat said when Danny came to the end of his report. “That’s the whole damned bunch finished.”

  “And it cost us Buck Lemming,” Danny replied. “He was married, got a family, too, Captain.”

  “I know that,” answered Murat. “It’s the way the game goes, Danny.”

  “If I’d been up front——”

  “Call that right off, boy!” the captain snapped. “Buck rode up front because it was his place as sergeant to be there. Nobody’ll blame you for the ambush, and what you’ve done since sure don’t need any apologizing for. Well, we can scratch Choya’s name out of ‘Bible Two’.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything more for me?”

  “Yep. I want you to pull out for Caspar, today, if you can.”

  “Something up?”

  “Cow thieves.”

  Danny looked at the commander of Company “G” and nodded. A Ranger never knew from one day to the next what new trouble he might find himself tangling in. Fresh off the trail of a band of murderous Comancheros, he found himself detailed to ride out the same night to deal with a bunch of cow thieves—even if his captain had not said it in so many words.

  “Sounds a mite urgent just for cow thieves,” Danny remarked, knowing such business was mostly handled by the county authorities concerned and did not normally require the Statewide powers of the Rangers.

  “It goes deeper than that,” answered Murat and settled down to explain the situation to Danny, including the possibility of far worse trouble than mere cow stealing developing out of the hiring of professional gun hands. Then Murat told Danny the most prime piece of information.

  “A woman running it?” Danny growled. “That doesn’t sound possible.”

  “Neither does seeing a gal handle the ribbons of a six-horse Conestoga—only we’ve both just seen that. Anyways, she has a perfect set-up to run it. A saloon where cowhands can come and go without attracting any attention; things even a saint* likes enough to make him think about grabbing a couple of unbranded strays, working on them with a running iron and selling them to pay for.”

  “That figgers,” agreed Danny. “Most young cowhands’d take a few chances to get extra liquor, gambling or gals. Only a gal running things makes it
just that much harder.”

  “It sure does.”

  Studying Danny, Murat wondered if the task might be beyond the inexperienced young man’s depth. Sure Danny had trailed and downed that bunch of Comancheros without calling for help, but that had been a straightforward piece of work. Tangling with the cow thieves and gathering evidence against their leaders, called for courage, brains—which Murat granted Danny possessed—and experience. It was the latter Danny fell short on. Yet he might be a good man for the job. At least he would be the right age for Ella Watson, or whoever controlled the stealing, to regard as a potential cow thief, and he knew enough about cowhand work to act the part without arousing suspicion.

  But could Danny swing things up there in Caspar and prevent another range war blowing a further Texas county apart at the seams?

  Then Murat remembered Danny’s relationship with Dusty Fog. Should Danny find himself in water over the willows up in Caspar County, a word would bring his famous brother riding to his aid. Nor would Dusty ride alone, but bring along his two good and efficient amigos Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid. While none of that illustrious trio had ever belonged to the Rangers, they could handle the trouble in Caspar County with ease.

  While rolling a cigarette, Danny watched Murat and guessed at his captain’s thoughts. His knowledge did not annoy him as much as it might have done before taking the Comanchero gang. Now he had proved himself in his own eyes and one thing he knew for sure. Should he handle the Caspar chore, no matter how difficult the task or how it went, he did not aim to call on Brother Dusty for help. Danny reckoned that if he could not stand on his own two feet by now, he was of no use as a Ranger.

  Only having a woman at the back of the business surely made it hellish hard to handle. Danny had decided on the same line of action as that thought out by Murat. Going into Caspar as a drifting cowhand, taking on at a ranch and then letting himself be drawn into the cow stealing, seemed like the quickest way to learn who stood behind the business. Catching the actual thieves would be easy enough that way; but, from what the captain said, they were only dupes. It was the brains behind the stealing Danny wanted. One did not kill a snake by cutting off its rattles, but by stamping on its head. Remove the dupes and the organizer would lie low for a time, then emerge and corrupt another bunch of fool young cowhands, turn them from honest, loyal hands to thieves.