JL Tate, Texas Ranger

by Lou Bradshaw

  He was a man of average size and coloring. His clothing was all black, except for the generous display of silver on his hat band, belt, and buttons. I suppose all that black and silver is supposed to be intimidating. And I could see how that was possible

  “Everything’s for sale… it just takes a little ne-go-shee-ate-in… Tell you what I’ll do, cowboy, I’ll make you another offer, and I expect you to take it…. Let’s try it again… I’ll give you fifteen dollars for that hoss.”

  The two other men in the room started moving off and under cover. They’d seen this kind of set up before, maybe not the same words or the same issue. But they’d seen some tough hombre try to get what he wanted by prodding his victim into a gun fight.

  His name was on the tip of my tongue, but it wouldn’t quite fall out of my mouth, so I stalled by shifting my weight and flexing my hand… that would give him something to think about. I wanted him to be thinking about my abilities when I sprung my surprise on him. And it didn’t come a second too soon.

  “What’ll it be, cowboy? I’ll give you a little time to think about it… How’s three seconds sound… One…”

  “Tell you what I’ll do, Drake…” I said, and I saw his eyes flicker at the hearing of his name. He didn’t finish the count, and I never expected him to. He went for his gun, but the mention of his name caused him to falter for just a fraction of a second. That was all the time I wanted or needed to pump two .45 slugs into him. One bullet went above his left shirt pocket and the other ruined whatever was in the pocket.

  As quick as possible I swung my pistol in the direction of the other two customers. I asked if they were riding with the dead man. They both denied they’d ever seen him before he came through the door a few minutes before.

  “Now, you boys know it’s a sin to lie… don’t you? And it’s even a bigger sin if you lie to a Ranger.” I told them, as I casually flipped the gun back into the holster… I was showing off. I knew better, but I wanted to keep these two on the defensive.

  “When I rode in, I saw three sets of tracks ridin’ together, and one of them was going lame… you want to change your answer? Tom Drake there had wanted posters out on him, and I’m thinkin’ I’ll find posters on both of you, if I take you into Lubbock.”

  “Honest, Ranger, we ran into him back a ways, but we didn’t know he was a outlaw or nothing’. We jus know’d he needed a hoss.”

  “Hmm? I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. But you have to take him out back and bury him… and don’t try collectin’ that thousand dollar reward because I’m puttin’ his demise in my report… only way you would stand a chance of gettin’ anything is to tote his body down to Lubbock in this heat. You could take him to Oneida, but I reckon you won’t want to go back there.”

  Going through Drakes pockets and his saddle bags, all I found the kind of stuff a rider would likely carry. There was enough to pay his bar bill and a few coins. My guess was, those boys would clean Drake’s pockets and strip all that silver before they tossed him in the hole. But that was all right because they’d be frettin’ over the reward money… It really wasn’t a thousand, it was more like a hundred, but that’s what they get for lying to me. I watched them drag the body out back as I reloaded my pistol.

  I finished my drink and had a couple of bowls of stew. There was no telling what was in it, but I didn’t find anything moving or still wearing hair, so I reckoned it was safe to eat. With all the peppers chopped up in it, anything bad for a body would likely just evaporate. You could drive a locomotive with the amount of fire coming out of that bowl.

  With the meal finished, I tightened my cinch, and climbed back in the saddle. I was hoping to get another ten or so miles in before sundown.

  Chapter 3

  Lubbock wasn’t much of a town as towns go, but I hadn’t been in too many big towns, so I didn’t have much to compare it to. I guess Santa Fe was the biggest town I’d ever seen, but it was old and well established long before the Americans got there. Lubbock sat smack dab in the middle of the Llano Estacado, so it was wide open. The most notable feature was a big flat topped mountain, which I would have called a mesa, but folks who live there can call it whatever they want to.

  I was a half a day early, so I wasn’t going to hold Carson up any. The Nicolett Hotel was the only hotel there, so that’s where I started looking. They told me he was registered, but they had no idea where he might be. But as I started to leave, the clerk whispered for me to look in any of the town’s three saloons. I thanked him, but that was my plan anyway.

  He was in the second one I looked into. It was a rowdy place with some fool trying to destroy an old piano, and a lot of laughter. There was also a good deal of dancing going on to the tortured sounds of that dying piano. Three saloon gals were do-se -do-ing with three times that many cowhands.

  At the far end of the bar, Carson had his own entertainment going on. I’d seen this before. Someone had asked about his six-gun; it was a new Colt .45 like mine. So one thing led to another and he started taking bets on how fast he could get it out of the leather. What he would do was hold a silver dollar on the back of his hand, drop his hand to his gun and be ready to shoot before the coin hit the floor.

  If he didn’t make it, whoever bet against him kept the coin. But if he did make it, he took their coin. From the stack of coins on the bar, it looked like he hadn’t come up slow very often. Actually, I believe he was making more money off those who just had to try it. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Even the short barreled .45s weighed about two pounds when loaded. So when someone talked about “dragging iron”, it wasn’t far from the truth.

  “How fast are you, when there’s someone facin’ you?” Came the question I’d been waiting for.

  “Oh, I’m just fair to middlin’. And I’m still standin’ and breathin’. But I don’t pull my gun against another man, unless I plan to end his life… and never… ever, without a damned good reason.”

  “Yeah…? how many notches you got?” The voice asked as its owner made his way into the circle.

  He was a small man, smaller that Carson’s five foot eight inches. And he was dressed like a tin horn complete with sleeve garters and highly polished boots. His nickel plated Colt was resting in a fancy black tooled leather holster, which hung almost to his knees. He had started a drooping mustache, which was so sparse, that you had to get pretty close to even see it… by that time I was pretty close.

  “A real fightin’ man never notches his gun, boy… The only place you’ll find a notched pistol butt is in them damned dime novels that farm boys and store clerks fall in love with.” Carson told him.

  “Wha… what are ya callin’ me?”

  “Listen carefully, son, because it’s very important… Before I started this demonstration, I emptied my six-gun just so nobody would get hurt.”

  While Carson was telling him that I was moving around behind him to get to the other side. I looked down at his pistol and found two notches in the handle. Whether they were real or just put there for decoration and show, I neither knew nor did I care. He was a lit fuse about to blow. My aim was to be ready to stop him if he started to draw, but the more I looked at that fancy Colt, the more I wanted to get a closer look at it.

  So while he was screaming at Carson about not being his son, and he wasn’t a boy, I just reached down and plucked that fancy thing right out of the holster. His hand swept down and came up empty.

  “Hey, Carson, lookie here… he’s got two notches. I guess he’s a sure nuff badman.” I called across the space between us as I held that nickel plated thing up in the air.

  He was trying to get his gun back, but it was well out of his reach, so he started jumping for it. Having someone jumping up and down in front of you is annoying in its own right, but when they land on your toe, it’s one step beyond annoying. So I treated him like I would any other trouble maker. I whacked him on the head with his own pistol. I guess Marshal McGill up in Pampa was right… I’m a bit sudden with a p
istol barrel.

  The boy dropped like a dirty rag, so I just unloaded his weapon and stuck it back in that fancy holster. He’d have a lump on his noggin and a crushed black hat, but he’d live another day. Carson was in the process of reloading his gun, so I just picked that hundred and twenty pound lad up and over my shoulder and carried him outside.

  There was a water trough that wasn’t being used a little ways up the boardwalk, so I decided to use it. He was starting to come around when I got him in position, and all I did was hurry him up a might by holding his head under for a few seconds. He came up coughing and snorting… I reckoned I hadn’t drowned him, so I hauled him out and set him up against the trough.

  He just sat there for about a minute coughing and choking. I let him sit; he was doing a good job of it. Finally, he moved and pulled himself up. I was half sitting and half leaning on the hitch rail. He got to his feet and shook his head like a dog slinging water everywhere. His head was hanging so that the only thing he could possibly see was his own boots standing in the mud.

  The first thing he did when he started getting his senses back was reach down and feel for his gun. Pulling his hat back on his head in a sort of proper place, he slowly let his head come up. Of course, the first thing he saw was…me lounging against that hitch rail. My long legs were crossed and my equally long arms were as well.

  His hand swept back and came up with his six-gun. I heard three clicks before he ever got it level, none of which would have scored a hit. He stood there, frantically pulling the trigger until he looked up and saw the Colt in my hand.

  All I said was, “Bang… you’re dead.”

  He stood there in shock, not knowing what to think or do, so I took his hand and guided his gun back into his holster. Next I took his arm and walked him down the street. We walked for about a block, with me gripping his arm the whole way.

  “Y… you gonna shoot me?” He asked, but I kept walking.

  I led him around a corner and into an alleyway before I stopped… I didn’t say a word; I just shoved him against a board fence. The look in his eyes told me that he figured he was about to die. He was shaking and his jaw went slack.

  “Friend,” I said, “do you know how close you came to being dead twice within the last ten minutes? Do you know that man you tried to pick a fight with was a Ranger and he’s out gunned more badmen than you’ve met?”

  He shook his head no and asked, “What’s a Ranger?”

  “Rangers, are state lawmen of the highest order… If you’d have killed that man back there, you’d have at least a dozen Rangers doggin’ your trail. It wouldn’t have mattered where you went. They’d ride you right into the ground.”

  “And the man you tried to shoot with an empty gun… me… is also a Ranger. You can thank whatever God you pray to that I knew your gun was empty…. Because you’d have never made it. You pulled the trigger three times before you ever had a chance of hittin’ anything but mud. I had you cold before you ever cleared the holster.”

  He just looked down without saying anything.

  “What’s your name?”

  He hesitated for a long half minute and then he said, “Alexander Ross.”

  Within a few minutes, I’d learned that he was almost sixteen years old, and he was from Indiana. To my way of thinking, that was old enough to be on your own, so I wasn’t about to waste my time sending him home.

  “You run off from home… leave your ma and pa wonderin’ where you are, or if you’re even alive.”

  “No sir, Pa ran off some time ago, and me and Ma was workin’ the farm till she died a few months ago. So I sold out and come out here.”

  “Tell me, Zander Ross.” I figured Alexander was too much name for him to be totin’ around, so I shortened it. “You been packin’ that sale money around with you all this time?” He bobbed his head and said he still had about eight hundred dollars sewn into his pants.

  “Mercy!” I said. “You’re lucky you got a dime left to your name carryin’ around that much money… Let’s go talk to my partner.”

  Carson was just coming out of the saloon as we reached the door. He stepped out and said, “Well, JL, glad to see, you didn’t have to shoot him.”

  “Carson, this here young fella is known as Zander Ross… and he’s late of a place called Indiana… He’s decided that he really ain’t cut out for the gunslingin’ trade. Although he’s mighty game, he still needs some seasoning… He sold his farm back in the civilized world, and he’s carryin’ a wagon load of money… You got any ideas what we should do with him to get him headin’ on the right track?”

  Carson scratched his jaw and did some strong thinking for a minute or two, and then he said, “These here staked plains has some mighty big ranches sittin’ on ‘em. Some of ‘em got hundreds of thousands acres. Some of those up north of here are bigger than some east coast states. We’ll be spending a night at one of the biggest in these parts in a couple of days.”

  “Now if Zander Ross would care to make a little seventy mile ride, I think I can get him a job that’s guaranteed to give him some seasoning. You got a horse, boy? And you got some work clothes? Them won’t last long on the old JR range.”

  The lad said he had both a horse and some rough clothes. So we told him to meet us at the hotel at first light and be ready to ride.

  Chapter 4

  We watched the lad walk away toward whatever quarters he had been able to find. When he had turned a corner and disappeared, Carson turned to me and said, “Tate, let’s go get some supper and I’ll tell you what we got lined up. This comes down from the Colonel hisself, so we got two choices… do it or get out of Texas.”

  “Well I don’t have any plans of leavin’ Texas real soon, so you better just skip the hard parts, so I won’t have to be worrying about them… And after seein’ that stack of silver dollars you won, you’re buyin’ supper… and breakfast.”

  “That’s a deal.” He said and we headed for the eating place that he fancied best, although there weren’t many choices. I knew Spade Carson was a man who liked to put his feet under a well set up table, so wherever he took me the food would be good and there’d be plenty of it.

  After we ate everything they could bring us without going out back and butchering a steer, we finally got down to business. Carson got the nickname of “Spade” because they said he’d be better off using a shovel than a spoon.

  “Tater,” he started, so I knew we were up against something… difficult. “About a hundred and forty miles southwest of here, there’s a little speck in the road called Odessa. It was a smaller speck before the railroad put up a water tank and some stock pens.

  “The town itself ain’t of much importance to us, but it’s where a couple of rangers caught up with Burley Clayton. You probably never heard of him… not many have. They sent him to prison for ten years for robbin’ a bank in San Angelo… you followin’ me so far?” I nodded to let him know I was hanging on every word.

  “That bank job was over a year old at the time, but somebody recognized him and they locked him up…. About that time an army patrol found a man wandering around in the hills bloody and half starved, but he had a story to tell.”

  “He told it that Burley had been part of a gang that had stole a Confederate gold shipment back near the end of the war. He was just a youngster at the time. The army was lookin’ hard and furious for that gold. They caught up with some and killed them in the chase. And soon there were only Burley and a man named Flanagan left. After a while, Flanagan disappeared.”

  “So what happened to the gold?” I asked.

  “Don’t get ahead of the story…. That man they found out in the hills was nearly crazy when they found him, so a lot of his talk was just nonsense that made no sense. But he knew about the gold shipment and he knew where it had been hidden for years. They sent some men to check, and sure enough, something had been there, but it was gone.

  They questioned him for days, found out that him, Burley Clayton and a fella name
d Simpson had moved the gold and buried it down near the border, or it could have been across the border. The fella died short afterwards, so they couldn’t get any more out of him.”

  “That’s just fine,” I said, “but what’s that got to do with you and me.”

  “Well Clayton gets out of prison this week, and he’s headed for Odessa. Cell block rumor has it that he was plannin’ on goin’ back there first, and he would be a rich man before long.”

  “But why would he come back here, when the gold is down in the border country?”

  “The way the Colonel and them figure it as, Odessa is where he came after he hid it, and he needs to follow his old land marks back to it. The boys in Austin are real anxious to get that gold back; even if it was Confederate gold… it was Texas gold.”

  “Why didn’t they make him talk when they arrested him for the bank job?”

  “Oh they worked on him for several days, but he wouldn’t talk… and all they had to go on was a crazy man’s talk… They said he didn’t make much sense most of the time. They couldn’t arrest him on a dead man’s ramblings… So you and me are gonna hang around and wait for Clayton to show, and we’ll follow him.

  Two days later, we rode in to the JR ranch headquarters, and I nearly fell off my horse. I’d never seen such a setup. It was like a regular town, and it was bigger than most I’d been in lately. It had its own store, which they called the commissary. That was a place where the hands could spend a little money on clothes, tobacco, sweets, and they could get a drink after sundown and on Saturdays. And it was in a whole lot better shape than most frontier towns. Everything was white washed and in fine condition. They even had a church.

  We left Zander on the porch, while Carson and I went in the main house. Carson got a warm welcome from a fella named Noah Draper. I figured him to be the owner, but it turned out, he was the Operations Manager. Carson explained that him and me were on our way through and just needed a bed for the night, but we had a youngster outside looking for work.