Stampede at Rattlesnake Pass

by Clay More

  "Who said that?" he shrieked, peering myopically to right and left at the crowd of urchins, loafers and busybodies. "Let’s have some respect for the law around here." And then blinking up at Jake he snapped out a series of questions in his high-pitched voice.

  "Who have you got there, mister? Is he dead or alive? Need any help?"

  "He’s wounded pretty badly, but he isn’t dead," Jake replied. "He’s a tough kid if you ask me. I come upon him and a whole passel of other cowboys at Rattlesnake Pass. They’d been shot up and their whole herd stolen. Some coyote had been left behind and was trying to finish them all off when I came along. He threw some lead at me but wandered off when I played possum. The kid here told me his moniker was Johnnie Parker of some spread called the Rocking H. That was afore he passed out." He shook his head. "And that was about a whole day ago, so I’m mighty keen to get him to a doctor."

  The grizzled oldster who was hovering at Deputy McCaid’s shoulder piped up again. "I told you, mister. We ain’t got a doctor."

  Deputy McCaid peered at the old loafer. "That you, Bart Rumgay?" Then before the other could reply, he peered up at Jake Scudder. "He’s right there, stranger. We have no doctor, but Matt Brooks the town marshal knows something of doctoring. He’s dug out enough bullets in his time."

  "I’ve already dug one bullet out of Johnnie Parker here," replied Jake, "but I’d sure like another opinion on what we can best do for him."

  "Follow me then, Mister – "

  "Scudder. Jake Scudder."

  Deputy McCaid coughed. "Okay, Mr. Scudder, follow me to the jailhouse and we’ll bed Johnnie Parker down in the spare cell. What did you say you did about the others?"

  "The bodies are in a gulley. Eight of them. I covered them up until you can go and recover them, then you can get after those murdering dogs."

  McCaid walked ahead while Jake and the assembled crowd of onlookers followed. "We’ll bring the bodies back, I reckon," he said. "But I don’t know what Matt Brooks will say about going after those cattle thieves."

  Jake Scudder’s impression of Marshal Matt Brooks was initially favorable. Clearly, the man had a strong physical presence and engendered confidence. He was tall, well groomed, and looked capable with both his fists and his sidearm. As soon as he saw the wounded man he showed his ability to organize by booming out a string of clipped orders.

  "You two," he barked to a couple of the surrounding loafers, "go into the back of the jailhouse and get some water boiling." Then to Deputy McCaid, "Samuel, go over to Joe Metcalf’s Emporium and get a couple of fresh blankets and some linen for bandages. Tell Joe the town will reimburse him." And then to Scudder: ‘If you’ll help me in with the victim there, then I’ll do what I can for him."

  Together they eased Johnnie Parker onto the wooden bunk in the spare cell. Then as they had made him as comfortable as possible, Jake gave an account of how he had found the young man.

  Matt Brooks stood up, a troubled frown upon his brow. "It all leaves a bad taste in your mouth, right enough. And the poor kid has been unconscious for a whole day, you say. That’s not a good sign."

  "But he seems a tough kid. I half suspected that he wouldn’t make the journey back here. Do you know him, Marshal?"

  Matt Brooks nodded. "He’s one of the Rocking H crew. I’ll send a rider over to the ranch right away. It’ll take a few hours."

  Jake nodded. "And I guess you’ll be sending a posse after the rustlers?"

  To his surprise Matt Brooks shook his head. "That is out of my jurisdiction, mister." Then when he saw Jake’s jaw drop in disbelief he continued, "Oh, I’ll send some boys out with the undertaker and his wagon to bring back the bodies, if you’ll just give me a full description of exactly where in Rattlesnake Pass you found them. But as for going after rustlers, my hands are tied. My jurisdiction goes no further than the town boundary. I'm a town marshal, not the county sheriff."

  "But there’s been a massacre out there!" Jake exclaimed. He was about to launch into a tirade towards the marshal when Johnnie Parker stirred. Then he coughed and spluttered and his eyes flickered as he struggled back to consciousness.

  Despite the marshal’s protestations about it not being necessary, Jake insisted on staying to help look after the wounded Johnnie Parker as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

  Samuel McCaid the deputy was ever ready to fetch meals and coffee and take his stint at mopping the perspiration from Johnnie’s brow, and in so doing endeared himself to Jake. It seemed clear that he was a genuinely caring man who was something of an object of ridicule within the town, on account of his visual limitations and his resultant clumsiness.

  When Matt Brooks was out on some business the deputy confided in Jake. "I told you Matt wouldn’t be too keen on chasing rustlers through Rattlesnake Pass."

  "Is the town marshal a tad scared?" Jake ventured.

  McCaid’s eyes seemed to grow to three times their normal size behind his pebble-glass spectacles. "Matt Brooks - scared? Hell no, Mr. Scudder. He’s just kind of – rigid. He won’t do anything against the law. He lives for the letter of the law and the law says that his jurisdiction stops at the town’s boundaries."

  Jake nodded and sipped his coffee. "Then I reckon the law is some kind of an ass. Eight men were slaughtered out there in Rattlesnake Pass and the law surely has a duty to make sure the killers are brought to justice."

  Deputy McCaid hung his head. "I see that, and I truly wish I could do something about it." Then he looked up, steely grit in his voice. "But if those mongrels ever find their way into Tucksville, you can be sure that Matt Brooks will see that justice is done, and no mistake!"

  Light was fading outside and Deputy McCaid had lit the oil lamps in the jailhouse before heading off for some food. Matt Brooks was writing reports at his desk and Jake was dozing beside the patient’s bunk when he was startled awake by the sound of a buckboard being drawn to an abrupt halt outside the jailhouse. Stifling a yawn, Jake was rubbing the sleep from his eyes when the door burst open and a vision of determined loveliness, with long corn colored hair, dressed in men’s range clothes, her hat hanging down her back, bustled into the marshal’s office. She was followed a step later by a tall man who moved with the grace of a puma, and whose Mexican clothes belied, in Jake’s opinion, at least partial Apache ancestry.

  "Miss Horrocks!" said Matt Brooks, rising swiftly from behind his desk. "I thought that someone would be coming from the Rocking H, but not you. And not so quick."

  "El . . . Elly! Is that – you?" sighed Johnnie Parker, weakly raising himself on his elbows.

  Before Matt Brooks could do anything, she was through the open door and clasping the wounded man’s hands in hers. Jake immediately recognized the love that flowed between them. Awkwardly, he rose and backed out of the cell to give them some privacy.

  He and the marshal were drinking coffee and smoking quirlies while Yucatan stood impassively by the door when Elly Horrocks came into the office a few minutes later.

  "I am taking Johnnie home now," she announced in a no-nonsense manner. "Yucatan will drive us back."

  "But – " began Matt Brooks.

  "I reckon maybe I better come with you, ma’am," Jake interjected. He gave the marshal a brief, cold glance. "Your ranch lost eight men. I guess your menfolk back at the ranch maybe want to talk to me."

  Elly Horrocks fixed him with a look that seemed a curious mix of amusement and pique, although Jake could not place which. But before he could say anything she nodded. "Johnnie told me something of you, Mister Scudder. I and the menfolk would be very pleased for you to come back with us."

  On the way back to the Rocking H ranch Jake had little opportunity to discuss what had happened. Elly Horrocks rode in the buckboard with Johnnie Parker, who had been provided with a makeshift mattress, courtesy of Joe Metcalf’s Emporium, while the taciturn Yucatan sat up front. The tall Mexican had, by his body language, made it clear that Jake was not welcome to sit on the buckboard bench alongside him. Accordingly,
Jake trotted behind on his big black stallion.

  Upon arriving at the Rocking H, however, Jake quickly realized that it was a ranch beset with the deepest troubles. His initial assessment was found to be an underestimation of just how bad things were when he sat with Ely and Saul after they had settled Johnnie Parker into the guest bedroom at the back of the ranch-house. For one thing he had not realized that the remaining menfolk of the ranch consisted of Saul and Yucatan. He certainly had been surprised to find that Saul was confined to a wheelchair, having been shot in the same bushwhacking that had killed their father.

  "I surely am sorry about the men that have all been killed," he said, as he accepted a glass of whiskey from the reserved yet ever present Yucatan. "But surely they weren’t the entire crew of the Rocking H?"

  "They were more than that," replied Saul Horrocks as he sat nursing his own whiskey glass. "We had hired more men for the drive. Now all that remains of the Rocking H is right here in this room – and Johnnie Parker through there." He tossed back the remains of his drink, then gestured Yucatan to replenish it from the decanter atop the roll-top desk.

  "Then you truly are in trouble," mused Jake. He covered his glass as Yucatan made to refill it. "So it looks as if you need all the help that you can get. Do you mind telling me how things got this way? Clearly, there’s got to be some history to this tragedy."

  Between them, Elly and Saul filled Jake in.

  "It is Elly that matters most to me," Saul said, after they had described the run of bad luck that they'd had over the last few years. "I was a drinker, a waster, and a bit of a wild thing. I feel bad about it now, but I took off and had me more adventures than I care to think about." He grinned boyishly for a moment. "And a good thing that I met my friend Yucatan there, during those wild days, or else I wouldn’t be alive today. Anyway, my pa took me back in, welcomed me like the prodigal that I was – and now I am head of a ranch with no crew and only half a herd and a colossal debt to the bank. What hope have we got, Scudder? All that’s left of us is me, a cripple, my little sister there, a half dead wrangler, and Yucatan."

  Elly Horrocks took a sip from her glass of lemonade. "We will be all right, Saul," she said, reassuringly.

  Her brother stared at her uncomprehendingly, then his cheeks suffused with color. "All right? Tell me how, Elly? We’re finished, can’t you see that?" His voice rose in volume, simultaneous with an expression of increasing consternation on his face. "We’re finished! Might as well – "

  He suddenly smashed the glass on the arm of his wheelchair and raised it above his head, as if to stab the paralyzed legs that he obviously hated so much.

  "No!" cried Elly.

  Jake was out of his chair in a flash as Yucatan called out and took a step forward in similar fashion. Jake dashed a hand out and grasped Saul’s fast descending wrist.

  "Nothing to be gained by goring your legs, my friend," Jake said calmly, as he removed the broken glass from Saul’s hand.

  Saul Horrocks stared at him like a man confused. "What – what can we do then?" he asked helplessly.

  "We can get our herd back!" replied Elly. "And that is exactly what I am going to do"

  Saul stared at his sister in disbelief. "What do you mean, Elly? How? You know yourself that Matt Brooks said he can’t do anything."

  Jake Scudder sniffed sarcastically. "He said he won’t do anything, you mean. He said it was out of his jurisdiction."

  "What did you mean, Elly?" Saul persisted. "I am useless and there is nothing that a girl like you could – "

  The torrent that greeted him took all of the men in the room by surprise. Elly Horrocks had shot to her feet in an instant, her arms akimbo and her jaw set. "There is a great deal that this girl can and will do, brother dear! There is Horrocks blood flowing through these veins of mine, just as there is through yours. Our family have never been quitters. None of us! And I am not quitting on you now!"

  Saul shook his head, tears visibly forming in his eyes. "Elly, I swear, I never meant anything – offensive. I never meant that you were less than a man. You have your legs and that’s more than I have. I just meant that – "

  "You meant that a girl couldn’t possibly do a man’s job," Elly returned, her voice calm, yet challenging.

  Jake Scudder had been watching the scene with ever-increasing admiration for Elly Horrocks. Spirit was a word that didn’t come close, in his opinion, to describing the courage and resolve that she was displaying.

  Yucatan seemed to have been forming the same opinion. He stepped forward. "Miss Elly must not even think of going after these men. They are bad, vicious killers. I will go after them."

  Elly shook her head, her cheeks quite flushed now. "Oh no you won’t, Yucatan. You must stay here to look after Saul – and Johnnie. He needs all the help he can get to recover. And we all know how skillfully you nursed Saul back to health after he was wounded in the back."

  Saul was recovering himself. "Then we should send out to Jeb Jackson’s Double J ranch, and ask him to send us a few men to help." He gave his sister a wan smile. "Jeb would be only too happy to assist us, Elly."

  This suggestion was treated with disdain by Saul’s sister. "That is the last thing that is going to happen. I am surprised that you could even suggest such a thing, Saul – after everything that happened on that day. I will never ask for that man’s help!"

  Saul hung his head. "That’s it then. We have no option; we’ll have to meet with the bank. Throw ourselves on their mercy." His head shot up again, concern on his face. "But one thing is definite, Elly. You can’t go. I won’t hear of it. I will – "

  Jake Scudder suddenly laughed and clapped his hands. "I have to say, Miss Horrocks, that you have as much spirit as any ten men. I salute your intention, but have you any idea of what is involved here? Have you any idea where they’ve taken your herd? How are you going to get your property back? Just ask them nicely?"

  Elly looked at him and flushed. "Why, I thought – "

  "Have you ever shot at a rattlesnake? At a man?"

  "No, of course I haven’t."

  "Then you are going to need back-up. By rights that should be the law, but for some reason your local lawman doesn’t see it that way."

  Saul Horrocks stared at Jake in disbelief. "Are you saying you’ll help, Mr. Scudder? Why should you do that? This isn’t your problem."

  Jake shrugged. "Let’s just say that I hate cold-blooded murder. And one of those jaspers shot at me. I reckon I have good reason to go along with your sister – if she’ll let me tag along, that is."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Although he admired Elly’s pluck, Jake Scudder felt uneasy on several counts as they followed the trail that the herd had taken. For one thing he was conscious that as they approached Rattlesnake Pass they could easily be picked off by a rifleman hiding up in the Pintos. For another thing there were just the two of them, a man and an attractive woman. He wondered if that in itself was enough to unsettle her. If so, he wondered how he could best reassure her that she was safe with him. Although he had lived among some of the roughest hombres alive, yet Jake still maintained a strong sense of propriety. He realized all too well that sharing a camp with her was bound to compromise either her sense of privacy, which he respected, or his ability to guarantee her safety. And it was the latter that really troubled him, for he had given her brother his solemn oath that he would look after her.

  "You needn’t worry, Mr. Scudder, I will not try to seduce you by moonlight," said Elly suddenly, as if she had been reading his thoughts as they approached the entrance to Rattlesnake Pass.

  Jake stared at her in amazement. "Why, ma’am, how did you know what I was thinking?"

  Elly chuckled. "From everything that Johnnie told me and from what I have seen of you myself, as well as the way you talk," she replied. "I could see that you were looking worried, Mr. Scudder." She patted Trixie, her cowpony, then laughed when the pony neighed at her. Jake smiled at her laugh, for it was a musical laugh that showed him t
hat beneath the strain she was clearly under, she was a young woman capable of humor. "I even think that Trixie here has been having similar thoughts about your stallion."

  Scudder grinned, his cheeks coloring slightly as the stallion suddenly shook its great head.

  "See, I was right, wasn’t I?" Elly asked. "But you don't need to worry. I'm spoken for. Johnnie and I are going to get married once we sort all this out – despite what my brother Saul thinks. So you are quite safe!" And at a touch of her knees and a click of her tongue the little cowpony trotted off ahead.

  The big stallion swiftly caught up. "I sure am glad that we've cleared all that up, ma’am," said Scudder. He grinned down at her. "But how about it if we dropped the formality a mite. I'm never very comfortable when I'm tagged with the ‘mister’ label."

  "Okay, Jake – and I'm Elly, remember."

  As they rode together Jake pointed to a series of fresh wheel tracks and hoofprints in the sand. "It looks as if a wagon came one way with a couple of riders, then went back again with a heavy load."

  Elly stammered, "Y-you mean - ?"

  Jake nodded at her unfinished question. "I reckon that Marshal Brooks sent the local undertaker and a couple of men out to Rattlesnake Pass ahead of us. It looks as if they’ve already recovered the bodies and taken them back to Tucksville."

  And indeed, when they eventually approached the hollow in Rattlesnake Pass, Elly insisted upon seeing for herself where the Rocking H crew had met their end; the hellhole from which Jake had saved Johnnie Parker.

  Jake saw Elly quaver in her saddle and he reached across, fearful that she might suddenly faint and topple from her saddle. But she was made of tougher stuff than that. She reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a small silver whiskey flask.