by Lou Bradshaw
Emma was fixing something to eat and coffee. We’d need to eat and put the fire out before the sun went down. I was almost too tired to eat, but I did because I knew I had to. Morgan had snaked up some dead falls and rolled some stones around to make a little decent cover.
Carson asked me when I’d slept last, and the best I could remember was yesterday afternoon for a few hours.
“Go on and get some sleep, you’ll need it.” He said.
“What about you?”
“Oh caught a couple hours, while you were over there getting’ shot at by those hombres. Did you thin ‘em out any?”
“One dead, one with a busted hip or leg, one hurt but walkin’, and one with a rifle blowed up in his face.”
“Lord, have mercy! You’re a regular keg of blastin’ powder.”
“Just earnin’ my keep.”
I took a cup of coffee and a plate of beans, and then I sat down to eat. My eyes weren’t even focusing by the time I set the plate down. So I found my bedroll and used it for a pillow without even untying it. I didn’t remember anything till late in the afternoon. I could hear noises that sounded like people moving about and dishes being cleaned. Opening one eye, I saw Carson sitting close by cleaning his tin plate with sand.
“Howdy there bright eyes,” he said, “you may as well roll over and go back to sleep, cause you got first and last watches. We figgered you’d be the most rested.”
“How long you reckon I slept?”
“Maybe three hours.”
“How long was I down there shootin’ at that bunch?”
“About five hours… give or take a little.”
“Call me in two hours then.” I rolled over and went back to sleep.
Sunset wasn’t far off when I woke the next time. Sticks had been pulled from the fire and it was dying. I had a few more beans and warm coffee. It was better than cold coffee. It was so much better than no coffee at all… I had another cup.
My watch lasted until approximately ten o’clock, and I woke Morgan to watch till midnight. Carson would stand watch till three and I would finish out the night. That’s the way it was supposed to work and usually did. But there’s always some cowboy that can’t tell time by the stars and wakes his relief up early. It never works out that he would wake his replacement late.
Morgan was given the easy shift since he was past his prime and a drunk to boot. Generally, any kind of serious mischief took place after the midnight hour. That’s when most folks are the most vulnerable; they’re asleep, or they want to be asleep. I heard Morgan wake Carson, and I knew I had three more hours sleep to enjoy, so I rolled over knowing that Carson was in charge.
My internal clock told me it was close to three, and I didn’t roll over, but instead I started pulling my mind and body into one workable package. As I lay there, I knew something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t what I was hearing, but what I wasn’t hearing that bothered me. There was no sound of movement. I had spent enough nights on the trail with Spade to know he is never still, He’s always moving from place to place. Granted, he moves as quiet as anyone, well almost anyone, I’ve ever shared a campfire with.
He could be on to something and not making any moves at all. That was the only way I wouldn’t hear something. I opened my eyes and eased my body up to where I could see the whole camp. Nothing. The little moon we had wasn’t like broad daylight, but it was site better than what we had the night before, but it didn’t shine on anything that looked like Spade Carson.
Easing myself out of my blankets, with Colt in hand, I waited a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the dark. There was still no sound beyond the wind in the trees and the rustling of brush, but there was nothing caused by man. Leaving my boots off, I moved around the perimeter of the camp. Off beyond the northeastern edge of the site, I almost stepped on a man’s arm. It wasn’t moving and I knew it belonged to my friend. My heart leaped into my throat. I had to swallow it back down before I could drop to my knees and see how bad he was hurt.
He was on his face, so I had to turn him over to see if he was breathing. He was, and I said a thank you to Heaven. I was up and on the move to wake the camp and get a canteen. Splashing some water in his face, got his eyes fluttering and then open. We were all talking to him at once, and Morgan was trying to help him up. Burley had made it up and was able to get to us by of taking a few steps and leaning on rocks or trees.
Carson was sitting against a boulder and holding the back of his head swearing at himself for getting conked and at whoever it was that conked him. Then he stopped, looked around and said “Beg pardon, Miss Emma… I forgot.”
I looked up to see if she had forgiven him, and then I looked from side to side and in all directions… She wasn’t there. I stood up and ran to her bedroll next to her father’s, and it was empty. Calling out several times but I got no answer. There was no need for secrecy… they knew where we were. I told Morgan to build up the fire, so we could at least have some light.
Burley found a note pinned to her blanket which read,
“We got the girl we want the gold… Will be in touch”
Burley sat on his blankets with his head in his good hand moaning. Carson was up but unsteady on his feet. I took a look at the back of his head and felt for blood, but all I found was an egg sized knot.
“I’m going after her.” I told him.
“I’ll go with you. Soon as I can get my eyes to focus.”
“You’re in no shape for it… I’ll go by myself… you need to be here when they make contact. From the looks of Burley, this could kill him.
“I’ll go and I’ll bring her back… or else I won’t come back.”
“You can’t track ‘em in the dark… You don’t even know where to start.”
“They came on you over there… They were waitin’ for you there…I’ve a hunch they’re over yonder on Blanco… That’s where I’d be. Chances are they left their horses down there and I’ll find out where. There’s enough moon on the plain to read horse sign and I’ll walk it if I need to.”
Carson knew I was right. His head was throbbing and his vision was still unclear, but he was a better leader than Clayton or Morgan, and somebody had to be in charge.
“All right.” He said. “And you just make damned sure you come back, and bring that girl with you.”
I almost missed that last part because I was busy saddling my horse. I led him down the hill through the junipers and brush, and I was lucky enough to come out close to where I had come in. It didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to find where they had tied up. Only one horse had stood there. I had wondered why they hadn’t just opened fire and killed us all and taken the gold. But they’d come after a bargaining chip. They knew just what they wanted. They probably thought we were better off than we were.
It dawned on me that they were pretty well shot up too. They may not have had more than three able bodied men to send. It was getting to seem like there wouldn’t be anybody winding up with those sixteen packs of gold. Those folks were about getting to the point of aggravating me, and I was done being cordial.
Sierra Blanco was about two or three miles across the plain from where we were camped. The moon wasn’t so bright that I could follow the tracks easily from horseback, so I walked and led my horse. By the time I was three quarters way across, the sky was getting lighter. Out here on level ground, the sun comes up in a hurry, and I didn’t want to be caught out there in the open. I took a chance and mounted, with the plan to search the base of the mountain for their sign. That’s when I saw the glow of a fire. It was set up about thirty or forty feet above the level of the plain. From the look of it, there must have been a ledge or a small shelf.
The fire was small, but I was still some distance away. I didn’t worry about the following tracks, that fire was sign post and it pointed me right where I wanted to go. Of course I wasn’t about to go charging up that slope and knocking on their front door. So I veered off to my right as I got closer to Blanco’s base.
The sky was becoming increasingly lighter, and I wanted to get under cover as soon as possible. I was sure, no one up there had seen me. Chances were, those men had been in the dark long enough and were enjoying the benefits of the fire, so they’d be paying more attention to it than some dark shadowy thing almost hidden on the gray black plain.
Moving to my right, I came to a place where it appeared men and horses had started up the slope before. It showed recent use by both men and horses. So I followed it. About a hundred yards up the trail, my horse kept looking to the right off to the north. Once he almost nickered, but I was able to stop it with a quick hand on his nose. There was something over there that interested him, bothered him, or exited him. So we took a detour over that way. Where we were, the junipers were thick and dark, but the filtered early morning light was filling in the darker places with gray.
So leading him over that way, we pushed through the brush and foliage, until we broke into a clearing. There stood a tall rawboned bay I had seen before, but couldn’t place who it had been ridden by. But my horse had made it’s acquaintance at some recent time. It probably had been buddies in some livery corral somewhere along the way. I noticed it was a mare, did that mean our mystery rider was here?
Well there was no sense trying to remember where I’d seen it, I just tied my horse nearby and went the rest of the way on foot. It was better than getting up there and having to worry about keeping him out of the line of fire. Making sure there was a live cartridge in position in my pistol, rifle, and backup six-gun, so when I needed a bullet I would have one ready. I didn’t know what I’d run into at the camp, but I was as ready as I was going to be.
Following the easiest course to where I figured the fire to be, I heard a distant shot… and another… and then another. Three shots usually meant a signal of some sort.
I learned later from Carson that Blaze had sat out on the open plain and fired off three rounds to get someone to come. Since Burley was in no condition, Carson went down to have the meeting. Blaze wanted to know where Clayton was.
~~~~~
“Your boys got some lead in him, and he’s down… Might not make it… I’m the closest thing you got to a boss.”
“What about that smart assed kid?”
“He took a couple bars of gold and lit out for cooler climates. You made it a little hot for him back there.”
“Too bad, I’d a liked to had a clean shot at him…. Here’s my deal… you bring us them mules… all loaded with the yellow gold, and we’ll turn over that girl.”
“Tom, you reckon I’m that hard up for a woman that I’d give you that much gold for one… I’ll admit, she’s a handsome filly, but come on now I ain’t that hard up.”
~~~~~
They had negotiated and struck a deal for six loaded mules for Emma’s return. Spade was of course stalling for time, and Blaze figured to kill Carson and go take it all anyway. Carson was to take the six mules to the bases of the slope below the outlaw camp at noon. I didn’t know any of that at the time, but when I heard the three shots, I figured it was for a pow wow. And I figured that Carson would be stalling for time.
So I kept climbing toward where I thought the camp was, hoping I wouldn’t blindly walk into a trap. I had reached the proper level, and all I could do was find the camp, find a way into the camp, steal the fair maiden and get her out without either of us getting killed.
After a bit of sneaking through the junipers, other assorted brush, and not a few dead ends, I came to the back side of the camp. The actual camp site was on an open shelf that backed up to a bare faced rock wall. It was no more than thirty feet above the shelf, at its highest.
Looking around the camp, I started picking out individuals who would be a problem, and spotting those who weren’t going to give me any trouble. I saw one Mexican with a splint on his leg leaning against the wall, him I knew. There was a white man with a bloody rag on his leg, but he was moving about.
He seemed to have no other problems that a bath wouldn’t cure. Drummond was there; as was Blaze… they would be trouble. The only one I saw who was out of action was a bandito with a dirty rag wrapped around his head. His eyes were covered with it.
Of course the first one I had looked for and found was Emma, and she posed a problem. I was on the east side of the small cliff, and she was on the west side. She was bound and sitting in the shade cast by the cliff. She didn’t seem too worse for wear, but she looked almighty mad instead of scared or hurt. That was good, I wanted here plumb mad through and through. She wanted out of there bad, and she’d do what she needed to make that happen
The biggest problem I had at that moment was getting to Emma. The rock wall was between us. To get to her, I’d have to cross in front of that cliff in plain sight. And to get her back to where my horse was, I’d have to take her across that same cliff face with people shooting at us.
Looking up the rock face, I let my eyes roam. From the top of the face, the hill continued to rise. It wasn’t overly steep, but there was no cover up there. We’d be exposed up there as well as on the shelf. I looked higher and farther back where the junipers started again. Back there, maybe forty or fifty yards, the angle leveled and started to go back down like a big hump. There would be cover of a sort back there. Now if I could find a way up… just maybe I could get her and me out of there and off of Sierra Blanco. Hopefully, I could get it done before someone showed up to swap the gold for Emma.
I figured Carson would be the one in charge over there by now, with Burley half bled out and with a busted shoulder. It would have to be Carson. Morgan would have crawled into his bottle by this time, or he would have the shakes so bad, he’d be a complete wreck.
My next move was to see if I could find a way to get over that hump up there, and then I needed to get in behind where Emma sat fuming.
Chapter 22
Walking back the way I’d come, I was searching for an easier way up and over that hump. It seemed to be a big solid piece of granite worn and weathered. I had to go back a good fifty yards before I came to the trees and brush. That was where the cracks and faults began. What I found was, the hump sloped way down in fact it was separated from the main body of Blanco. Much of the gap had been filled with talus and some larger stones. Mostly it was rubble that had fallen from above.
The pile of rubble had spread between the hump and the main body, so that it created a highly uneven but usable passage over to the other side. A surefooted horse or even an average horse wouldn’t have much of a problem, but I wouldn’t want to send an old plow horse over it. It was no effort at all for me to scramble over the eight foot high pile and down the other side. Finding that gap made my life a good deal simpler… and easier. Emma shouldn’t have a problem getting over that little pile.
Back down on level ground, I started moving toward where I’d seen Emma sitting in the shade. On this side of the hump, the brush was thicker and the junipers were taller and fuller. I wouldn’t be able to see her until I was nearly in the camp, nor would those in camp be able to see me approach until I was out in the open… I was hoping they wouldn’t see me at all. If it all worked out, I’d be able to cut her free and get out of there before they saw us. I’d just throw her on that other horse and beat it across the open ground as fast as we could go.
The urge jumped back into my head to wonder about that other horse. Somebody was going to come up short a horse, but it couldn’t be helped… a young girl’s life was more important than some fella losing his horse. If we can get off this mountain and out in the open, before Carson comes out with a bunch of loaded mules, then the whole assignment could still be saved.
Enough wondering and pondering, I needed to get close to the back of that camp site and work myself out a plan. With each step, I had to lift my foot straight up and put it straight down. There were few leaves on the ground, but there were twigs a plenty. Usually nothing grows under cedars or junipers except a little bit of grass and some weeds, but I was still steppi
ng with great care.
A slight movement out of the corner of my right eye caught my attention and made my heart skip a beat. I stood stock still for what seemed to be an hour, but it wasn’t more than a few seconds, and then it moved again. My rifle was fully loaded, and all I needed was to pull the hammer back. I knew where the movement came from, and I could see the silhouette of a boot on the ground behind the far side of a tree. I changed my direction.
Working my way around several trees, I was able to come up behind the mystery stalker. If this was another one of the gang, and I hadn’t counted him then I had more to worry about. If that was the case, I was going to take care of the problem right pronto. I was in a position to see his outline, but the sun was coming through the trees and I couldn’t make out any features… except that he was a big one. He was intent on what he was looking at, and if he’d been looking in Emma’s direction, I could understand it. She had that kind of effect on men.
But he was looking into the camp and away from the cliff. I was hoping he was a scout for a troop of mounted cavalry soldiers and not some nosey pilgrim about to get himself killed. Not knowing what cavalry scouts were supposed to look like, I had nothing to compare him with, but he didn’t look like anything I’d ever imagined. So I pulled the hammer and whispered, “Friend, I don’t think you’re in the right place at the right time here.”
He stiffened and slowly raised his hands and the rest of himself. I told him to turn around slowly. He did and I found myself looking eye to eye at Johnny (Bob Lynn) Appleseed.
“Lynn!” I whispered as loud as I dared. “What in the Sam Hell are you doing here?”
“Howdy to yourself, Tate. I was wonderin’ what happened to you boys?” He said in a softer whisper than mine and asked, “May I,” and he pulled something from his vest pocket and handed it to me.