Vigilance Committee War

by Bill Sheehy

  ‘Down there,’ he said, pointing down off the trail. ‘If they’d used a tree back a bit more I’d never have seen him.’

  Buck stood in the stirrups and took a long look around. ‘Not much different here than anywhere else. How far is that line cabin you were heading to, Smokey?’

  ‘Oh, another hour’s ride I reckon.’

  ‘Hmm, Louie, it’s getting late in the afternoon. What say we find a place over there for our bedrolls and settle in? Get us an early start in the morning looking the place over.’ Louie nodded and started reining his horse down, stopping at the mouth of the shallow canyon.

  Smokey sat for a moment then followed along. ‘You don’t mind, I’ll join ya. Probably wouldn’t make it to the cabin before it got too dark to see.’

  From where the men unrolled their sleeping bags they could just see where the dead man’s fire had been.

  ‘There ain’t much there,’ said Smokey, ‘some ashes and a burned black cinch ring. I simply unloaded the supplies was on the back of the pack horse and strung them up in another tree, safe from any varmint. Wrapped him up in a blanket and tied him to the back of my pack horse. I never did see any sign of his horse or even a saddle.’

  Throwing together a quick, hot little blaze, a supper of crisp bacon, fried bread and canned peaches was eaten, washed down with coffee boiled in a large can. With supper out of the way the three sat around enjoying their smokes.

  Camping out along the trail was something both Buck and Louie favoured. Lying back watching the stars, or the moon if it had risen, after a day of riding was very pleasant. Smokey glanced from one to the other, wondering if they’d mind his asking questions. Finally he had enough of the evening’s quiet. ‘When y’all was Texas Rangers,’ he asked concentrating on rolling a cigarette, ‘did ya ever capture any rustlers?’ Using a stick poked into the fire, he lit his cigarette.

  ‘No,’ said Buck, using a bigger stick to poke at the fire. ‘All the time I was with the Rangers, I rarely got involved with chasing down gangs of cattle rustlers. Heard a lot of stories about it though. Seems there was a lot of trouble with Mexican rustlers along the border just after the end of the Civil War. The Mexs would come into the Republic of Texas, this was before Texas became a state, and run herds across the river. Of course there were also reports of Americans going south and coming back with herds of Mexican cattle. Listening to the stories I got the idea it was tough keeping a herd anywhere close to either side of the border.’

  ‘Hmm, yeah,’ commented Louie after a moment. ‘I was part of a detachment sent out in the Fort Griffin area to see what could be done about a vigilante gang who had been working to put down an epidemic of horse thieving. We did a lot of riding and about the only thing we saw was a man hanging from a pecan tree. Funny thing was leaning up against the tree trunk was a well-worn pick and shovel. We reckoned the tools were in case someone wanted to dig a grave.’

  Chapter 31

  ‘I’ve heard it said,’ said Smokey, ‘getting caught stealing a horse was a sure-fire way to get hung while slapping a brand on someone’s unbranded calf could be overlooked.’

  ‘Wal, yeah. That could happen,’ said Louie nodding. ‘Taking a man’s horse might be leaving him stranded in dangerous country. Or out there where the nearest water was miles away. Lots of cattlemen work on the assumption of a failure to brand a new calf meant the critter could be lost real quick.’

  Nothing was said for a while. The three men relaxed, staring into the fire, probably thinking about the man who’d been hung in the tree they were camped near.

  ‘Wasn’t always only men who did the rustling. Don’t think it was,’ said Buck after a bit.

  Smokey came alert, frowning. ‘Women rustlers? I never heard such a thing.’

  ‘Oh yeah. It happened. One story I heard had to do with a woman named Kate Averell. She was about sixteen when she married a fella named Pickell. He was a few years older and not a good man. It was said he abused her, going so far as to use a whip on her. That was somewhere in Kansas. A few years later Kate turned up in Red Cloud, Nebraska without her husband. Don’t know what happened to him. She worked as a cook in an establishment thought to be a brothel. Whether she was a prostitute or not I don’t know. But it wasn’t long before she married again, a fella named Jim Henderson. The couple moved down to the Texas Panhandle and each filed on 160 acres. To start their ranch Kate was said to have bought a couple dozen head from a fella passing through. Soon, a rider travelling through the area said he counted more’n fifty head on the couple’s 320-acre spread. Well, according to the story, Kate filed a brand and when anyone asked about how fast her herd was growing she explained she’d been gathering mavericks. You know, unbranded cattle. It wasn’t long before people were calling her “Cattle Queen Kate”.

  ‘Well, there was a big cattleman, name of Bothwell, who had his operation a couple miles down the road. It was said this Bothwell had gotten tired of Kate putting her brand on his young stuff. It was a lot like here, everybody was running their stock on their own homesteaded land as well as open range. A range detective, George Rawlins, went to work for Bothwell and after a while accused Kate of rustling cattle from Bothwell and branding them with her brand.

  ‘Bothwell and a few of his hands rode over and arrested Kate and her husband. One of Kate’s hired hands, Dan Fitger, tried to stop them and a gun battle started up. It ended pretty quick when Kate’s man was run off, leaving one of Bothwell’s hands wounded. Fitger rode over to another ranch but by the time he got back, both Kate and Jim had been hung. Bothwell was arrested by Rangers but there hadn’t been any witnesses and so the judge let him go. I suspect there have been others, but Kate is the only one I ever heard of.’

  Smokey shook his head. ‘Hard to figure,’ he said, ‘something like that happening. I mean a woman and all.’

  The men sat thinking about it. After a while Louie, obviously thinking about where they were and why, came up with a question. ‘Wonder what the fella what got hung here was planning on doing?’ he asked. ‘Smokey, what’s the country like up in those foothills to the south?’

  ‘Uh, just more rolling grasslands mostly. There’s a few little outfits on another ten miles or so, but things seem to be a bit dryer out that way. Not really good cattle country.’

  ‘Well,’ Buck said, ‘guess we’ll take a look around here come daylight. Maybe there’s enough sign to show what that fella was up to. From what I could see coming in, this here looks good. Kinda hidden off the trail where a jag could be kept out of sight while a running iron could be made hot enough.’

  Smokey nodded. ‘I didn’t spend much time. Just wanted to cut him down and get him off that tree limb. The only thing I saw I can really remember was that blackened cinch ring.’

  ‘That’s all a man needs,’ said Buck, ‘if’n he’s any good. Someone knows how to go about it can take a cinch ring, build a fire to get it hot and make nearly any brand you’d want.’

  ‘Wal,’ said Louie, ‘I heard a story about that once. About a fella what used a saddle cinch ring as a running iron. He was caught with a small herd all branded with a big 48. Claimed that was his brand. The men who caught him didn’t believe him so they shot one of the branded steers and peeled back the hide.

  ‘As you might figure, brands take a while to heal. On the animal’s flesh the Bar S had been branded. Clear as you’d want, the Bar S with the numbers four and eight over it.’

  Taking a stick Louie marked out Bar S in the dirt. Using the line of the ‘bar’ he added little lines making it the number 4. The letter ‘S’ was quickly made into an ‘8’.

  ‘Anyway that satisfied the men they had a rustler and strung him up.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Buck pensively, ‘I’ve heard of men using twists of wire, too. Altering brands is a frequent practice among rustlers.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ said Louie, yawning, ‘but just like with most men who think it’s easier to make a living stealing from others, rustlers all too often end up working ha
rder than anyone trying to make an honest living. I always thought people like that weren’t the smartest frogs in the pond.’

  Chapter 32

  Sleep came easy for the men that night. Whether it was all that fresh air, the long ride the day before or just becoming relaxed around the slowly dying campfire. For all of that though Louie was up and around, had the fire built up and coffee brewing when Buck rolled out of his blankets. Hearing the men talking woke Smokey up.

  ‘Tell you what Smokey,’ said Buck after blowing to cool his cup of coffee, ‘we get breakfast out of the way and I’ll help you load up your supplies. No reason you can’t go on doing whatever it was you’d come out this way for. Louie and I will likely spend a couple hours looking the place over then head back toward town.’

  ‘Sounds good. The line shack is on over the next little ridge or two. It’ll probably take me the rest of the day to unload and get the cabin cleaned out. It don’t take them damn packrats long to start abuilding their nests once the hands get shet of the place. I always figure to spend at least a day cleaning, fixing and stacking up some firewood. Won’t be long before a crew’ll be coming out to make a gather.’

  Louie looked up from the frying pan sizzling with thick slices of bacon. ‘Country looks like it could get a little rough. Lots of these little canyons and gullies. Wouldn’t want the job of chousing them longhorns out of the brush. I worked a couple years for a spread down on the Texas-Louisiana border. Country a lot like this. Getting the bulls out of the brush was bad enough, but when it came to the cows, especially if’n they got young stuff suckling, well, watch out. There were times I thought blasting powder woulda been the best thing to have.’

  ‘Yeah. I started working for Mr Jacobson about five years ago. The first couple years I and another young cowhand worked at keeping the horse stock ready. Then that fella, Price, he came into the area and started breaking saddle stock. The next gather I was out there with the rest of the hands, yelling and roping and getting the crap scared outa me. Nothing much worse than a mama cow or one of them big old steers what don’t want to leave the scrub brush.’

  ‘Many head get used to finding a home up in this hill country?’ asked Buck, using a piece of dried-hard bread to mop up the bacon drippings from his tin plate.

  ‘Oh, not all that many. We’ll likely get a couple hundred head outa the brush. Won’t take long to cut out the yearlings and slap a brand on them. Those are the ones we’ll drive down closer to the main ranch. Put them all together with what’s out on the flats for a major drive to the railhead.’

  Louie nodded. ‘Sounds like a lot of hard work. Think I’ll stick with doing what we’re doing, jobs here and there nobody else wants to do.’

  The sun wasn’t much more than an hour or so above the horizon when, after helping the young hand tie his supplies onto the pack horse, Buck was watching him ride out of sight. Riding the big black horse to the top of a nearby ridge he sat for a while rolling a quirley, looking out over the range.

  From where he sat he had a good view down a long, wide ravine thick with brush and scruffy-looking meadows. A line of low-lying trees meandered down marking a small creek. Moving his horse to where it could chomp grass from another little patch, he found himself looking into yet another draw. He couldn’t see any water and the brush was a lot thinner and coarser.

  Shaking his head, Buck reined around and rode back into the gully they’d camped in.

  ‘That Smokey get gone?’ asked Louie.

  ‘Yeah. Thinking about the work of pulling ornery old cattle out of the brush like he’ll be doing soon doesn’t appeal to me.’

  Louie chuckled. ‘Won’t bother him. He’s still young. Now you and me, well, never mind.’

  ‘I took a little ride up that ridge on over there.’ Buck lifted a thumb to give a direction. ‘About the first of a series of hills from what I could see. We’re far enough from the mountains that the trees covering them looked blue-green. I couldn’t see very far but from what I could tell there are a lot of ravines and arroyos in this part of the Frying Pan range. Hard country to work in, that’s for sure.’

  Louie only nodded. ‘While you was taking it easy with a morning walk I went down to look over where the rustler had been working. Found the fire-blackened cinch ring Smokey talked about. Cold dead ashes from a bit of a fire, but not much else.’

  ‘Uh huh. Well, my little ride was kinda interesting. You know, from where I was setting up there, I couldn’t see one steer. Not one animal anywhere. Now it’s still early and this is the time of day most cows will want to head for water. Didn’t see anything moving any place.’

  ‘Well, I never thought about it, but I can’t recall seeing much stock coming up. Not since we left the flat lands anyhow,’ he stopped, thinking. ‘You know, now that you mention it, there’s something else I just thought of. That fella Smokey brought into town. The rustler. Wasn’t he supposed to have been using that cinch ring for a running iron to change brands?’ Buck nodded. ‘Well, there wasn’t one sign of there having been any cattle anywhere in that little swale. Oh, there’s one of them narrow little trails livestock and deer use threading through the brush. But no cow pies or chomped down grass like there would have been if that rustler was working on more’n one critter at a time. I don’t think that fella was really doing anything that should get him hung up in that tree.’

  Chapter 33

  Riding away later in the morning, both men kept an eye on the range. Neither said anything but both remembered having been ambushed not so long back. At one point, about an hour after leaving the foothills where they’d spent the night, they spotted a small bunch of cattle spread across a grassy slope. Louie pointed them out to his saddle partner.

  ‘Wonder if we were to go riding that way what brand we’d find on those critters. They’re about the closest of any we’ve seen since leaving that branding fire and running iron.’

  ‘Ah, they’d most likely have been branded with the Frying Pan iron. But it’s not likely we’d get close enough to read any brands. Longhorns are especially spooky after being a long time away from any riders. Shorthorns, on the other hand, don’t seem to care.’

  ‘Uh huh. I notice the way we’re headed, I’d say we’ll be paying the Frying Pan another visit. You reckon we’ll find answers to anything there we didn’t get the last time? What you got buzzing around in that head of yours?’

  ‘Yeah. Well I’ve been thinking about not seeing any sign of cattle back near the rustler’s fire. Thought it’d be a good idea to find out more about young Smokey.’

  ‘Ya think he wasn’t telling it true?’

  ‘Don’t know. Just thought it might be worthwhile. Why, you got a hot date back in Auburn I don’t know about?’

  ‘Don’t I wish. The mayor’s daughter, now, she’s a looker. Awfully young but awfully fun to watch. Must be my Mexican blood acting up. Us Mexicans are all great lovers, ya know.’

  Buck laughed. ‘No, I didn’t know. Haven’t seen much sign of it lately either. Look there,’ he pointed off to the side. ‘That’s a pretty big bunch of cattle spread out over there. Must be getting close to the home ranch. According to Smokey the hands will be somewhere up in this part of the ranch beating the brush for marketable cattle. I expect they’ll chase them down to these lowlands for branding.’

  The Frying Pan range was big; it took another two hours riding or more before the main ranch buildings came into sight.

  ‘I wonder what kind of reception we’ll get this time,’ muttered Louie as they rode into the ranch yard, ‘what with the young firebrand back there somewhere.’

  ‘Know soon enough. There’s the bossman up on the front veranda watching us ride in.’ Pulling up at the hitchrail Buck nodded and called out, ‘Good morning, Mr Jacobson. Would appreciate a few minutes of your time.’

  ‘Wal, come on up outa the sunshine.’ Stepping back to an open door he called out, ‘Hey, Mirella. Got a couple saddle-bums riding in looking for coffee. Got any of this morning’s l
eft over?’ Turning back he laughed, ‘C’mon up, gents. If I know Mirella, and I do, she’ll be out in a bit with fresh coffee and likely pieces from that apple pie she’s been working on. Give those horses of yours a break and c’mon up.’

  Shaking the man’s hand, Buck smiled. ‘Well, if we had known there was apple pie waiting to be sampled we’d’ve been here earlier. Thank you.’

  Jacobson chuckled. ‘That woman is a jewel. Loves to bake and turns out some of the best bear-claws, pies and cakes you’ve ever tasted. Why, I swear, I could cut the hands’ pay in half and we’d still get all the help needed just cause of her baking.’

  ‘It’s one of your hands we’d like to talk to you about.’

  ‘Oh? What’d one of them do, try to chase you off the place as you rode in? That ain’t like them.’

  ‘No.’ Buck shook his head, and then stopped when the woman came out carrying a coffee pot and cups.

  ‘The pie is just out of the oven,’ she said. ‘It should cool down a bit before I cut into it.’

  Buck waited until she went back into the house.

  ‘Naw, we didn’t see anyone riding in. Passed by a lot of cattle but no hired hands. No, it’s the one called Smokey we’d like to know more about.’

  ‘Hmm, now that doesn’t surprise me. He brought that dead man into town didn’t he? Said he found him hanging out along the south section. He brought him here and I sent him on into town. Figured you’d want to know about it.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, he came in yesterday packing the body. He said he was headed out to supply a line shack, out near where he found the man hanging. We rode out with him. Wanted to see if there was anything we could find might lead up to the vigilantes.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, it’s likely the fella Smokey found was left there by that damn Vigilance Committee. You two getting any closer to finding out who’s in that gang?’