Stampede at Rattlesnake Pass

by Clay More

  STAMPEDE AT RATTLESNAKE PASS

  CLAY MORE

  Stampede at Rattlesnake Pass by Clay More

  Copyright © CLAY MORE 2007

  Smashword Editon

  Published by the Western Fictioneers

  westernfictioneers@flash.net

  Cover Design L. J. Washburn

  Western Fictioneers logo design by Jennifer Smith-Mayo

  Image credit: Charles Russell

  All rights reserved.

  For Tricia and Quincy

  PROLOGUE

  Ben Horrocks struck a light to his cigar as he urged his palomino along the zigzag trail leading down from the mesa. He puffed contentedly for a moment; a man at peace with himself and with his lot in life.

  "I love this country, Saul," he said to the young man riding along beside him. "It does this old heart of mine good to have you back at the Rocking H. I missed you all that time you was away, boy."

  Ben Horrocks was a tall rangy man with an iron grey moustache and deep wrinkles etched in a darkly tanned face. His son, Saul, was a younger version, clean shaven, unlined and apparently without a care in the world.

  "And I am glad to be back, Pa. When Ma died I figured I just needed some time to cut loose and grow up a bit. But something told me it was time to come home and help you and Elly." He shook his head and whistled. "And I reckon whatever told me got it right. I hadn’t realized how hard it must have been for you trying to run the place on your own."

  Ben blew out a ribbon of smoke and squinted up at the blazing midday sun hanging in a cobalt cloudless sky. "Yes, it has been tough, Saul. But I have a good feeling that we’ll be able to turn everything around now." He patted the bulging saddlebag in front of him. "With this loan from the Tucksville Bank we'll be able to pay the boys what I owe and buy a new bull. I think our luck is about to change, son."

  They reached the bottom of the zigzag and the trail narrowed as it crossed the semi-desert with its numerous saguaro cactus and thickets of yellow blossomed paloverde.

  "I think you’re right there, Pa," Saul replied with a grin. "What say we speed up some and get this money back to show Elly? My little sister could do with some cheering up. She needs a man in my opinion."

  Ben tossed his head back and gave a short snort-like laugh. "Well she might get one soon as well. It could be helpful, if you catch my drift."

  "You mean Jeb Jackson at the Double J?"

  "That’s what I’m thinking. He’s real keen on her, you know."

  In reply Saul raised his hat and gave a loud whoop. "Well, Pa," he said with a mischievous grin, "I reckon I’d better hurry off home right now and tell Elly just what you’ve got in store for her." And with a kick of his heels he urged his roan down the narrow trail.

  "Don’t you say any such thing, you young varmint!" Ben cried in mock annoyance. "Anyways, I reckon my palomino will be home long before that piece of crow-bait you call a horse." And with a guffaw of good humor he kicked his heels to set the big palomino after the roan.

  The palomino had only just begun to lengthen its stride as he watched Saul streak past a thicket of paloverde. Then he watched in disbelief as he saw the unmistakable shape of a rifle barrel suddenly protrude from the thicket and discharge.

  He saw the puff of smoke and heard the report of the gun. And as he flicked his eyes ahead, he saw his son’s arms go out and his head shoot backwards as if he had received a battering blow to his back. Then he tumbled from the saddle to lie unmoving in the sand.

  Fear and anger fought for mastery as he reined the palomino in and clawed for the Peacemaker at his side. In his young days he had been no slouch with a gun. He cleared leather, his thoughts now being a tumble of self-preservation, desperation to get to his son, and a desire for revenge against this murderous bushwhacker.

  As if in slow motion he saw the rifle barrel swivel in his direction as he raised his gun, his thumb ratcheting back the hammer.

  But the rifle fired twice in rapid succession, both bullets hammering into his chest. He tumbled backwards off the horse.

  And as his life ebbed away he cursed himself for not being there for his son. For not being there for his daughter.

  "Luck – just changed –" he gasped as his heart beat its last ever beat.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Elly Horrocks stood over the two graves on the butte that marked the highest point of the Rocking H ranch. It was a weekly ritual that she had gone through over the past six months, ever since the bushwhacking of her father and elder brother. Yet it never seemed to get any easier. She laid posies of flowers and said her silent prayers as usual, then shed a few lonely tears before letting herself out of the little picket fenced enclosure.

  "Come on, Trixie," she said to her sorrel cowpony. "Let’s chase the wind." And mounting up she let the pony have its head for a mile or two before turning and heading back for home and the depressing atmosphere of the ranch-house and all the problems that seemed to go with it. But as she rode back her mind conjured up the image of a young man breaking in a colt. She warmed to his sandy colored hair and roguish smile, wishing that he could be riding alongside her now.

  "Someday soon, we’ll be able to tell the world, Trixie," she said to the back of the sorrel’s head, grinning to herself as the animal's ears seemed to prick up with interest. "But first we need to find a way out of this mess."

  And with her mind now on other more mundane matters she rode up to the ranch-house and tied Trixie at the hitching post with its cast iron Rocking H sign atop it. She mounted the steps two at a time, unencumbered as she was by skirts and petticoats, preferring to wear men’s range clothes, which did little to conceal her attractive curves. At the door she pulled off her hat, ran a hand through her long corn tresses, and let herself in.

  "We were worried about you, Miss Elly!" came a gravelly voice from an inner doorway.

  She started despite herself and spun around to face Yucatan, her brother’s friend and former saddle partner, now the Rocking H general factotum. He was tall, broad shouldered and narrow hipped with angular features and dark complexion. His eyes were sharp, his movements quiet and fast, feline almost. Although he professed to Mexican ancestry she suspected that through his veins also flowed Apache blood. He stood in front of her in a black shirt buttoned to the neck and trousers tucked into calf-high soft leather boots.

  "I was visiting the graves," she said, disliking the way that he fussed over her since the shootings.

  "It is not a good place. There are rattlesnakes about up there."

  A suitable reply was forming in her mind when another voice called through.

  "Elly? Is that you back now? God, I’ve been worried."

  Elly looked up at Yucatan and fancied she spied a knowing look hover across his lips.

  "I said we were worried, Miss Elly," he said.

  She nodded silently as she brushed past him to go through the hall to the main room. A young man was sitting in a wheelchair by the large bay window, a paper in one hand and a wad of documents on his blanket covered knees. His resemblance to her was unmistakable; same corn colored hair, blue eyes and lightly dimpled chin. Yet there was a hardness, a bitterness about the mouth that was foreign to Elly’s visage. She was aware that it never used to be there on him.

  "I’ve only been visiting Ma and Pa’s graves, Saul," she said, taking in the worried expression.

  Saul Horrocks dropped the paper on top of the others, shook his head and smiled past her as Yucatan entered and stood a pace behind her shoulder. "It would have been three graves up there if my friend Yucatan hadn’t found me."

  "We are friends, Master Saul. You saved my life once, now I will always look after you."

  Elly felt her cheeks redden
as a surge of guilt came to consciousness. She knew that it had been such a close thing. If Yucatan hadn’t found them that morning then her brother would have bled to death with a bullet in his spine. There had been nothing that he could do for her father, of course. And the murderers, whoever they were, had stolen the money they had just borrowed from the bank. As it was, Yucatan had taken her father and brother back in the buckboard and while the hands took care of Ben Horrocks’ body, in the absence of a trained medical man Yucatan had removed the bullet himself with a red hot knife, then cauterized the wound. Undoubtedly, it had saved Saul's life, but apparently the bullet had smashed his spine and permanently taken away the use of his legs. Over the months that followed Yucatan had looked after all of Saul’s manly needs, while Elly saw to feeding him back to some semblance of health.

  "I should be dead, Elly!"

  She dropped down on one knee beside him and took his right hand. "Well, you are not dead, Saul, so don’t get maudlin again. Please! You have still got me, and I am here for you, Saul."

  Suddenly, anger flared, as it seemed to do so often these days, and he viciously raised a fist and brought it down on his thigh scattering the papers on the floor. "Goddammit! There’s no feeling there, Elly. I might just as well be dead for all the use that I am. I am condemned to this chair and I can’t run a ranch from here, can I?"

  "We will manage, Saul," she protested.

  His eyes flashed upwards, challengingly. "How, Elly?" he queried, a tone of desperation having crept into his voice. He pointed to the papers on the floor and Yucatan crossed the room and silently began picking the sheaves up and stacked them into a pile which he laid on the nearby table.

  "Bills, bills! How are we going to pay them off?" Saul went on. "We’re getting deeper in debt every day – and now the bank is threatening to foreclose on us." He gritted his teeth and thumped his other thigh with his other fist. "That damned bank knows that those dirty bushwhackers stole the money Pa borrowed, but Wilber Goodson the new manager had that letter delivered to me today. They won’t wait more than another two weeks."

  Elly gasped. She straightened and walked to the window, looking out at some of the ranch-hands going about their early morning chores. Her eyes fell on one in particular leading a couple of horses towards the corral and for a moment her angst was distracted.

  She heard Saul sigh, then:

  "Elly, there is still one way – "

  She spun around, her mouth firm. "No, Saul! We’ve been through all this before. I will not marry Jeb Jackson."

  Saul nodded to the tall Yucatan. "Give us a moment, will you? I could do with some coffee."

  With a nod the factotum left silently.

  "Now see here, Elly, the morning we were – shot – Pa told me that –"

  "I won’t consider it, Saul. Jeb Jackson is near twice my age and I – I don’t love him. I can’t! I won’t do it!"

  Saul clicked his tongue. "Then we only have a couple of weeks to find enough money to pay back the loan and stop the bank foreclosing. We’ve got to show them that we have plans – big plans! But first we need to raise money."

  "How, Saul? What can we sell?"

  He hesitated for a moment. "I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I have been thinking. We sell half the herd, straight away. Then we pay the bank and instead of buying a bull like Pa planned, we buy sheep. We’ll have to tighten our belts, cut back on some of the luxuries, but with a good price for our beeves at Silver City and a whole parcel of luck we might manage it. I reckon we can sell half the herd at Silver City, then go south and buy a goodly sized flock of Navaho-Churro sheep then we can start to build the biggest sheep ranch in the territory. Meat and fleece, we might just manage it."

  Elly looked at her brother in amazement. "Sheep? You want us to become sheep farmers? Pa would turn – " She bit her lip as she realized what she had said. "I mean, we’ve always been cattle ranchers."

  "Then maybe it’s time to change, Elly. The way I see it, we can breed sheep for meat and wool and keep half the range for the beef." He held his hands palm upwards. "We have to do something real different if we are to survive all this."

  Elly puffed her cheeks. "I guess so. I just never thought of anything as different as that. But you are talking about a drive, now? Surely we don’t have enough men to drive half the herd. That would be two thousand head."

  "We’ll hire more men." He flashed her a smile of encouragement that for a moment seemed to have the humor that she remembered him having in abundance before the shooting. "What say you go and get Bill Coburn and whichever of the boys he can bring in and I’ll feed them the deal." Again the smile played across his lips, then:

  "Go on, little El," he said with a wink, using his old term of affection for her. "Yucatan will have the coffee rustled up by the time you get back."

  Bill Coburn had been Ben Horrocks’ ramrod for nigh on twenty years and knew just about everything there was to know about ranching. He was a bow-legged old puncher with thinning hair and a posture that looked as if he could be poured into a saddle. He sat uneasily on the leather settee on the opposite side of the bay window from Saul. Beside him, looking equally uneasy, as if he feared dirtying the seating, sat Johnnie Parker, the Rocking H wrangler, a sandy-haired, good-looking young man of about twenty years.

  Both men seemed slightly uneasy, but for different reasons. Bill never felt sure how to talk to his employer Saul Horrocks, and had to admit to a slight prejudice about him having taken off for a couple of years after his mother Elizabeth Horrocks had died from a fever. He sympathized with him all right for having lost his pa and getting shot up, but he somehow doubted that he had the ability to make the ranch work. As for Johnnie, his unease was caused by the fact that Elly Horrocks was standing pouring coffee for them and he was studiously trying not to look at her. When she finally handed him a cup and saucer it was all he could do to not let it rattle too much.

  Elly smiled to herself then sat on the chair beside her father’s old roll-top desk. Yucatan stood by the door, arms folded in front of him.

  Saul Horrocks was frank. He laid his cards before them as to the precarious situation that the ranch was in.

  "So you see, boys, we have no choice. We have to diversify and start building a name for sheep in these parts." He hesitated a moment, then asked: "Unless either of you can think of some other way out of this mess?"

  Bill placed his cup and saucer on the floor by his feet. "Sheep?" he repeated in disbelief. "I never thought I would end up chasing sheep." He gave a shrug of resignation. "But if that’s what we have to do, then so be it. So first you need us to move half the herd to Silver City? That’ll be a tall order with just five men."

  "Then hire another three or four. They’ll get paid at Silver City."

  "It’ll take at least a couple of days to get ready."

  "That’s all the time you’ve got. The bank will foreclose in two weeks. Silver City is about sixty miles from here, so it’ll take several days if you push them hard. Coming back will be quicker, of course."

  Bill sighed and rose to his feet. "Reckon I had better get onto it right away then." He tapped Johnnie on the shoulder. "Come on, boy, you go tell the others what’s happening while I head into Tucksville and try to do some hiring. The way I see it, we’ve got to make this work or we’re all out on our ears."

  Johnnie saw Elly start to gather cups and saucers. He swiftly scooped up Bill’s cup and saucer from the floor and carried them over to the table. "Let me take that tray, Miss Elly."

  She thanked him and led the way past Yucatan to the kitchen. Once there Johnnie deposited the tray on the table then turned as she willingly fell into his arms and they kissed passionately.

  "We need to tell your brother, Elly," he whispered as they parted.

  "I know, but not yet. Not when we face losing the Rocking H." She brushed invisible dust from his sleeve. "You help Bill get that herd sold then we’ll see."

  Johnnie’s face creased into that roguish smile she
loved so much. "Elly, if it means we can be together I reckon I can become the best damned sheepherder since Joseph himself in the good book."

  * * *

  Jeb Jackson was a proud man. A rich man who had built up the Double J spread through hard endeavor, business savvy with a streak of ruthlessness tempered by a measure of fair play. Now in his prime, at least in his own estimation, he wanted someone to share the fruits of his toil and success; someone who could give him companionship and more – help him establish a dynasty to pass his wealth to.

  And he had set his sights on Elly Horrocks – if she would have him.

  "Damn it, Jeb!" he exclaimed to himself as he stood looking at the full length mirror in the dressing room adjoining his bedroom, struggling to tie one of the fancy French bow ties that he had sent from New Orleans. "You are all fingers and thumbs – and you’ve made a fine hash of it."

  With a curse he pulled it off yanked open a drawer from which he drew out a fresh bandana instead. He knotted it about his neck, immediately feeling more comfortable. "What do you think you are playing at? Dressing up like some city slicker to try and impress the girl?"

  He swiveled right and left to assess his reflection. In truth, he had to admit that he was not displeased with himself. Hard work and being careful with his vices had enabled him to keep a trim enough figure, and he had been fortunate enough to have kept his hair, in both quantity and color. He ran a finger across his equally dark moustache then picked up his Stetson and made for the door.

  He thought of what he was going to say as he rode alone along the trail towards the Rocking H.

  Poor old Ben Horrocks, he thought. He never had much luck, poor fella. And his son Saul; how happy Ben had been when his prodigal son came home – only for Ben to get shot through the heart and Saul to get backshot and crippled. Effectively it had left Elly Horrocks, the best-looking girl this side of the Pintos, more or less alone to run the ranch while her brother was nursed back to health by that Mexican friend of his, Yucatan.