by Lou Bradshaw
Clayton had set up a place for her to rest just inside the shaft. It was out of the sun but still caught some of the breezes. “She’s feeling much better now.” He said.
She raised up on her elbow and said, “Tru… Truman… thank you for helping me through that, I was so frightened…. I just needed someone to hold on to.”
I started to say, it was my pleasure, but I didn’t think Clayton would want to hear that, so I said, “We’re all safe now, and that’s the important thing.”
Carson was leading our horses up as I turned to leave, and Burley asked where we were going. He looked a little panicked, so I told him what we had planned, and that we would definitely be back. He looked relieved.
Spade was a bit uneasy about riding out past that outcropping into a blind corner. So I suggested that I would go along the ridge and have a look past the outcrop, and then join him below. He agreed that would be best, and we separated with me taking the high road.
From the top of the ridge, I could see that the big chunk of granite was really the anchor for that whole point. The valley which lay below Baldy Peak had at some far distant time been a lake between Baldy and Mount Livermore. When the lake overflowed and washed out this end, it must have washed away a lot of the west side of Baldy. When it hit the granite, It must have turned right and flowed into the valley. The backwash pressure had scoured the base of the mountain behind the outcrop, creating a giant hook.
As I rode, I reloaded my Winchester, being always mindful of how many I was putting in. It surprised me to learn there was only one cartridge left, and that one was in the chamber. I had fired sixteen times… I didn’t remember taking that many shots, but numbers don’t lie. I supposed that having Emma so near and hanging on so tight may have been the reason I’d lost count, or it could have been because I was more interested in saving our lives than taking someone else’s.
When I reached a point a few hundred yards short of the granite, I saw a trail leading off to the left. It had been used years ago, probably as a shortcut back and forth to Fort Davis. It made sense, if you weren’t in a wagon, why go all the way around the big hook. So I took it. The worst that would happen was I would run into Carson down at the bottom.
Since I hadn’t put my rifle back into the scabbard… I didn’t. That old trail most likely began its existence solely to service deer, big horned sheep, and Javelina, those wild Mexican pigs. From the looks of it, at one time it had served a good number of horses as well but none recently.
The trail was overgrown but passable, brush and branches of trees had crowded it to the point of having to go slow so you didn’t get smacked in the face. I’d worked my way through worst, but I would sure love to have had my chaps. Stopping to move a branch enough to get myself under, I heard something coming up the trail.
It could’ve been a deer, but the foot falls sounded too solid and too heavy for a deer or any of the other animals that might use this trail. Then I heard the distinct sound of iron shoe on stone. Easing back the hammer, I made my rifle ready for business. But I didn’t want to conduct business, unless someone opened the store. I didn’t expect Carson to be coming up the trail so soon, but anything could happen.
Since I was going downhill, whoever was coming uphill was at a disadvantage. It was a slight disadvantage but none the less a disadvantage. If nothing else it was a mental thing because you always wanted the high ground.
I could see the trail well for a good thirty yards. At that point there was a massive block of stone, which the users of that trail had gone around for probably hundreds of years. And it seemed they still did. As the foot falls came closer, I could hear others. There was more than one rider, which ruled out Spade Carson. He could eat like he was a crowd, but he could only ride one horse at a time.
By the time the head and neck of the first horse appeared from behind that huge rock, I knew I had no friends coming up that trail. I had no fond desire to gun a man down as he came around a bend in the trail, but I had no desire of any kind to be gunned down. So I steadied myself and waited till the rider was almost in the open. He had the good grace to see me before I could shoot him. There was that split second of recognition, when he swung his rifle into firing position. I pulled the trigger and opened store.
I hit him square, and I saw his chest jump back as his own rifle tore up a small patch of the trail. He slumped forward trying to stay in the saddle. A second man came around the rock on a horse that was in mid turn. I took a wild shot at him, but all I got was the whine of my bullet tearing off into some unknown place after leaving a white scar on that big rock.
Racing up to the rock, I abandoned the saddle and ran to the edge of the rock in time to see three riders disappear around another bend. I wasted a bullet on them just out of pure cussedness.
Turning back to the first man, who had fallen to the trail, he lay on his back with arms stretched out. He was still alive, but he wouldn’t last long. I’d hit him just above and to the right of his breast plate. There was a lung there, and it was filling up with blood. What little breath he had left he was using hard trying to cough up blood.
Getting down on a knee, I hoped to get a few words from him. Out of compassion, I asked if there was anyone I could contact for him… His eyes closed, tight and he shook his head as best he could, no. Then I asked his name, and he gave me the same head shake. I reckoned he didn’t want anybody to know how his life ended. Next I asked who the boss was. I waited through a coughing fit, and then he drew the strongest breath he’d drawn since I’d been there and said something that sounded like, “Ward Drummond.” Then he tried to cough again, but it was a losing effort. He was fighting for breath and chocking. His body was tense and his fists were clenched. With his back arched and eyes open wider than I thought possible, he gave one last effort and collapsed. His eyes went from something almost explosive to things dull and lifeless almost instantly.
While the man lay dying, I’d heard an exchange of gunfire down below. I could only hope that Carson was still alive. I didn’t much care about the others.
Chapter 14
Standing there looking down at the dead outlaw, I was struck by the thought that only a minute before, he was alive. He had plans, thoughts, and feelings. By that I mean, he could feel the leather on a saddle, the heat of the day, and the coolness of a stream. But laying there he couldn’t feel, think, or plan anything. What was it like when the lights went out? What was it that started him down the outlaw trail… why him and not me?
I looked through his saddle bags and found a few envelopes addressed to Ralph Barber from Rachel Barber of Fredericksburg, Texas. Was she his wife… sister… or mother? I folded one of those envelopes and stuck it in my pocket. I’d have to get word to Rachel Barber. She needed to know what happened to Ralph.
My thoughts must have been a little astray, because I missed hearing someone coming up the trail behind me. When I realized that the sound I’d been hearing was a horse climbing up the trail, I spun to face what or whoever it was. My rifle was in the crook of my left arm, and my right hand was full of Ralph’s estate. So my right hand turned loose of everything but my Colt which was coming out of the holster.
“Hold on there, cowboy.” Carson said as he cleared that huge block of stone which marked the bend in the trail. “When I heard shootin’ up this way, I went on around that point just in time to see three of them come tearing down the trail…. we saw each other about the same time and we all started shootin’… I may got some lead in one of ‘em, but I can’t count it without the scalp.”
“What did you catch there… let’s have a look.”
He dismounted and walked around Barber’s horse. “Looks like Ma Barber done lost another one of her boys… Not sure if this one is Ralph or the one they called Pluck. Old Rachel had five or six boys, and each and every one of them wilder than panhandle jackrabbits.”
I handed him the envelope and said, “Ralph.”
I took Ralph’s rifle and six-gun. The rifle I tied
behind my saddle, and the pistol went into my saddlebag. Then we tied the body across his saddle and sent his horse and him down the trail. As we rode back to the mine, I asked Carson if he’d ever heard of Ward Drummond.
“Yeah… what about him?” He asked.
“He’s the boss of that outfit… That’s all I could get out of Barber before he died.”
He thought for a few minutes and then said, “That figures. He was in the hoosegow about the same time as Clayton. Rumors fly round there faster than an ol’ lady’s sewin’ circle.”
“Drummond ain’t much, but he always thought himself up there with the James’s and the Younger’s, but he never had what it took to be a big time outlaw. He would take on any ol’ down and out loser… Even Clayton’s old bunch was better than the crowd that ran with Drummond, and Clayton’s ol’ gang wasn’t much.”
Clayton didn’t take the news that Ward Drummond was leader of the bunch that had hit us. He pulled us away from mine entrance, where Emma was resting, and he let go. His cussin’ style was by the book and was something to behold. He went on for about a minute without a single repeated word.
“When we were both in State Prison, we spent our days bustin’ rocks, and our nights tryin’ to figure a way to kill each other. But we each always had plenty of muscle with us. He got out about six months ago, and I thought I’d seen the last of him.” He did some more cussin’ about Drummond, and he cussed himself for braggin’ about the gold.
“There’s only three of them left.” I told him. “You don’t suppose they’d try to hit us again with those odds, do you?”
He thought about it for a few seconds and said, “A rational man wouldn’t, but once a man’s got the thought of gold into his head, sound thinkin’ goes out the window.”
I’d heard that line of talk before, and I believed it was true for a lot of men. So for the sake of caution I told him, “We know they went back toward the Fort Davis turn off, but we can’t take it for granted that they kept on goin’. So I would suggest you let either me take point, and you stay back with Emma… Carson or Blaze can take rear guard, and the other one can haze the mules along.”
“But I’m the only one who knows where we’re going. You’d get lost.”
“You’ve been moving south by southwest ever since we started, and you took the easiest route each time there was a choice… and I won’t be so far ahead that someone couldn’t come get me if I took a wrong turn.”
He liked the idea, I could tell, but he wasn’t ready to change his mind.
“Look at it this way; Clayton… we all got a vested interest in keeping you alive. If you’re out there in front and you get killed, the rest of us might just as well pack up and go home broke as ever… If I get shot down out there in front, the only one it’s gonna bother… is me.”
“It’s not just Drummond and his rag tag outfit we got to worry about… What about whoever that gold belonged to, won’t they be wanting it back?
“They’re gone,” he said, “they don’t exist anymore.”
“You must have been a crafty kinda fella back in the day, to keep from gettin’ caught, shot, or hung. And you’re still a young man, but your trail instincts have to be a might rusty with a ten year layoff. I’d stand a much better chance out front than you. And who would be better suited to take care of a pretty young girl than her own father?”
I don’t think he cared much for my, “pretty young girl”, remark, but she was just that, and he’d better come to a reckoning with it. If the two of them come out of this alive and wealthy, he’s going to have to bring in the state militia just to keep the young bucks at bay.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to ride along beside that pretty young girl, but I was thinking of the mission. I was a Ranger and when I accepted the badge, I took on one of the most dangerous jobs in this part of the world. Folks were hesitant to shoot a town marshal for fear of getting lynched; shooting a US marshal could get the army on your trail. But when a man is being sought by the Texas Rangers, he knows there ain’t no running far enough to keep from getting run into the ground. So he’s likely to shoot the first one that comes after him just to buy himself some time and distance.
So yeah… I knew the risk when I signed on, and as much as I hated to admit it, but keeping Burley Clayton alive at this point was a lot more important to the Great State of Texas than keeping me alive. There’s just some things a fella has to come to grips with.
“You’re right, Tate…We’ll move out in the morning.”
Carson and I turned and walked back to where our horses were ground hitched and munching on bunches of grass. As we walked past the mine entrance, my eyes naturally shifted toward the pallet Clayton had prepared for Emma…the bedding was there but no Emma. Then I saw her in deep shadows pressed against the wall near the opening…. How much had she heard?
If she heard us talking about gold, and what I said about her father being crafty enough to keep from getting caught and hung, the image of her father just came crashing down. She’d been made to believe he was wrongly imprisoned, but if she heard it all… she heard too much.
There wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I couldn’t bring it up. There was a chance she may not have heard anything, and was merely upset by the gun battle earlier in the day. The look on her face showed she was definitely upset by something.
We didn’t see any more of her the rest of the day. Clayton took a plate to her at suppertime, but it wasn’t touched several hours later when he went to check on her. She wasn’t seen the rest of the evening.
We had set up a guard rotation, even though it was highly unlikely that Drummond and his bunch would take another shot at us after the beating they’d taken earlier. But what was a couple of hours sleep compared to never waking up. I had the last shift, which was fine, but it made the day that much longer.
Whenever I have to wake to take a watch shift, I usually start coming around a little ahead of time. And so it was that night, as the pre dawn hours approached, I was half awake and half asleep with little peeks at the sky, and then I’d close my eyes again. I was in that world in between asleep and awake, when I heard something that didn’t belong.
The hammer of a Colt had been drawn back very slowly and very deliberately. Someone was doing their best to be quiet… it wasn’t working. I was suddenly wide awake. My six-gun was where I’d put it about an inch from my right hand. Laying on my right side, I could hear the crush of leaves as a foot came down on them. The next step was soft and slow coming down. It couldn’t be more than two feet away from my back. I waited until I heard the foot coming off the leaves before I moved.
The foot was coming off the leaves, and I moved. I flung myself over with the barrel of my pistol pointing where the face should be. It was there, it was ugly, but it wasn’t a face I expected. The shock of me exploding out of that bedroll was one thing, but to see the barrel of a .45 caliber Colt muzzle pointed at your face would cause many a man to skip a heartbeat. Tom Blaze froze.
He stood there with one foot slightly off the ground, and his six-gun halfway between down and level. But all Tom could see was that big black hole, which was then no more than a foot away from the bridge of his nose. His eyes were crossed and his mouth was open. He had lost all color and beads of sweat were glistening in the firelight. I reached over with my left hand and took the pistol from his shaking hand.
While I was easing the hammer down on his pistol, I was bringing my thumb into position to pull the hammer back on my own gun. Click-a-click was the sound it made and it seemed so loud, I was surprised it didn’t wake the camp. Blaze squeezed his eyes, and made himself ready to die. But I figure everybody deserves another chance, so I just laid the barrel of his own gun above his right ear, with some degree of effort.
It was like dropping a sack of potatoes from a church steeple, when he hit the ground he just went plop. I stood over him and in a low voice so as not to wake the others I said, “That was your last second chance, Tom Blaze.”
Turning around, I saw Carson standing behind me. “I’ll help you drag him off to the bushes. If he’s alive come morning and someone finds him… we’ll blame it on bad coffee.”
Chapter 15
When the sun was coming up I had the fire built up, bacon was in the pan, and the coffee was already black and strong. I went about waking Burley and Morgan. Carson was already moving, and I didn’t even look for Blaze because I knew where he was.
“Where’s Blaze? Clayton asked.
“Haven’t seen him.” I said, “I went to wake him, but he was already gone… I just figured he had some business he needed to take care of in private… I wasn’t about to go looking for him. He’s around, his horse is still there with the others.”
Clayton went to wake Emma. She came out of the tunnel a few minutes after he returned. Everyone went to getting their coffee and waking up. Emma didn’t have much to say to anybody, but she did give me a weak smile that had little sincerity in it. I figured that was as good as I was ever going to get.
“Hey! Come lookit here!” Morgan yelled from the brush. “It’s Blaze and he’s dead drunk.”
Burley hauled himself up from the log he was sitting on and went to see about Blaze, grumbling all the way into the brush.
A few minutes later they came back half dragging Tom Blaze between them. They sat him down on the same log Burley had been using. He just sat there holding his head in his hands moaning. Morgan ran off to some secret destination but came back within a minute looking pleased with himself.
“Where you suppose he got the likker?” Morgan asked.
“I don’t know that he was drinkin’.” Clayton said, “To be that drunk, he’d stink to high heaven.”
“You think he’s been eatin’ some of those Injun mushroom?” Spade Carson asked. “I didn’t think there was any this side of Arizona, but you never know.”