Tomas made introductions all around then Pablo and Carmen adjourned to a quiet library to prepare her deposition. The ever efficient attorney first took her deposition in Spanish, wrote it down exactly as she said it, then promptly translated it and wrote it down in English.
When he and Carmen returned everyone was enjoying a pitcher of margaritas and he joined them saying, “After hearing about him, I am glad I don’t have to defend him. He is Satan in disguise. I’d like to have a look at him before I go home.”
John took Pablo to the tack room and granted his wish to see the prisoner. Samuels showed little emotion when the door was opened. He just finished eating the dinner Tomas had brought to him.
Pablo looked him in the eyes, and then turned away. He told Juan later Samuels was too evil to look at very long.
The next morning Tomas took Juan, John, and Samuels, still in manacles, to the train station.
John and Juan both thanked Tomas. John told his hosts he would like to return to the ranch sometime soon, so they could return the hospitality by having them visit his ranch in the future. Tomas indicated he would take them up on the offer.
During the long train ride John and Juan took turns napping and alternated guarding Samuels.
When they finally arrived in Corpus Christi they looked for Lisa and Maria. Instead they found Chief Ward, and two men John did not know.
Mike Ward introduced them to Officer Winters and Assistant Police Chief Joe Alexander.
Alexander and Winters re-shackled Samuels, handed John his manacles, and hustled the prisoner out of ear shot as Mike talked to John. But before they took him away John said, “Wait just a minute. I have one more thing to say to him. “Samuels, you low-life bastard. It wasn’t bad enough you stole millions from my dad’s estate, but the worst thing you did was refuse to set up a trust fund for my sister, Sarah. If it hadn’t been for Chief Ward they would have moved her to a charity hospital. I will be there to testify to that at your trial.”
Samuels looked at the ground as he was led away.
Then Mike’s face reddened as he told John, “I have some really bad news for you. Indian Bob has escaped.”
“Oh, shit. What happened?” John asked.
Mike replied, “Oh, shit is right. And he killed two of my best officers in the process. They were also close friends of mine, so now I have a personal stake in catching that animal.”
“How did that come about?” John wanted to know.
“Well, apparently some good Samaritans found him unconscious on a train and took him to a doctor’s office where he tried to kill them. The doctor sent for the sheriff, who arrested him. The sheriff recognized him from a wanted poster, but Bob was acting so wild the doctor wasn’t able to dig the bullet out of him.
“In the confusion he must have stolen a scalpel from the doctor’s office and concealed it on himself somehow.”
“Where did he escape?” John inquired.
Mike continued, “According to the report I got from the conductor, one of the officers went to relieve himself while the train was loading cargo in San Antonio. Somehow he slipped out of his wrist shackles, retrieved the scalpel, and slit the throat of one officer. Then he took the pistol from the officer’s body and shot the other officer when he returned. That’s why I’m meeting you here instead of the ranch, so I can get a head start hunting him. Want to go with me?”
“You bet your ass I do,” John eagerly replied.
Chapter 7
The Search for Indian Bob
“I thought you might; that’s why I brought your horse along with mine,” Mike told him.
John took the briefcase, handed it to Juan, and told him, “Juan, lock this up in the ranch safe until I get back. I’m going with Mike to bring back Indian Bob, dead or alive but preferably dead.”
“Si senor,” Juan told him, and they all watched as Mike and John rode away.
As they rode off to the northwest, John asked Mike, “Where do we start to look for him?
“Well, I figure he will try to get to the Indian Nation where he thinks he can hide out. With that slug still in him, where you shot him, I doubt that he will be able to do the ‘Apache Shuffle’ for very long, so he’ll probably try to steal a horse,” Mike said.
“What is the ‘Apache Shuffle’?” John asked.
“The ‘Apache Shuffle’ is something all young Apache boys learn early in life. It is a half-walk, half-run, and by doing it all day they have been known to travel up to 40 miles without stopping,” Mike explained.
“So where do we start?” John asked.
Mike replied, “We’ll start where he did, at the rail yards in San Antonio, then travel north. We’ll stop at every farm and see if they are missing a horse.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” John agreed.
They traveled north until dark and stopped at a farm. They asked for and were granted permission to bed down in the barn. They expected to get jerky and biscuits, but the rancher’s wife insisted on feeding them beans, cornbread and coffee. They thanked her sincerely and were both soon asleep on a pile of straw.
At daylight the next morning they were in the saddle. That morning they checked three farms with no success.
As they rode up to the fourth farm on their trail they were met by a huge man in bib overalls and pointing a double barrel shotgun in their direction.
“Who are you, and what is your business here?” he demanded to know.
Mike showed his badge and inquired if he was missing any horses.
“Sure am. My best pinto was stolen last night. Two chickens were also taken. Funny thing though. The saddle wasn’t taken. I heard a noise and sent the hound outside and we found him this morning with his throat cut,” the farmer explained.
John replied, “Just be glad your throat wasn’t cut, too. The man responsible for this is Indian Bob. He kills for pleasure. If I were you I’d keep the doors locked for a day or so, to make sure he has left the area.”
The two of them continued north and mid-morning they found the ashes of a small fire, surrounded by chicken feathers.
Mike commented, “This is where the bastard ate the chickens.”
For two more days they continued riding north, but no sign of Indian Bob. At night they camped with no fire so as not to alert their prey that they were tracking him. The third day as they rode, Mike commented, “I have the uneasy feeling someone is looking at us.”
“I feel that way too, as if someone has been watching us all day,” John agreed.
That night they built a huge fire, cooked beans with bacon, then arranged two bed rolls next to the fire. Then they slipped into darkness and watched from hiding. Their feelings had been correct. As an hour passed, a shadowy figure emerged from the darkness and shot into both of the fake bed rolls.
Mike yelled at him, “Hold it right there. Drop your gun and put up your hands.”
Instead of obeying, the intruder shot at them and attempted to flee into the safety of the darkness. Mike shot once and John three times, and the figure fell. Mike and John both ran into the light of the fire. They both felt sure it was Indian Bob and felt relieved the hunt was over.
Their jubilation was short lived as they got closer and saw that the dead man only had one leg.
“Shit, I thought we had him,” John blurted out. “I wonder who this poor bastard was?”
“Judging from the lost leg and the crude crutch he was using, he is probably a Civil War veteran who lost a leg. He probably couldn’t make a living so he had to resort to robbing travelers,” Mike offered.
John opined, “Well, I don’t feel sorry for him. He just tried to kill us by shooting us in our sleep.”
“That’s true, but I don’t want to leave his body out here to feed the coyotes. We’ll put him on his horse and take him into the first town we see,” Mike said.
The next morning they approached the outskirts of Waco and handed over the body to a deputy sheriff on patrol. Mike explained he was the police chief of Houston, what they were doing, and asked if there had been any sightings of Indian Bob in the area.
After getting a negative response they again headed north aiming for Dallas. After another night of camping out, they were on the outskirts of Dallas.
Both of them were bone-tired, disappointed, disgusted, and dismayed for losing the trail. They stopped at a small settlement and found a livery for their horses, a diner, and a boarding house where they could get a good nights’ sleep.
The next morning while having a good breakfast of bacon, eggs, biscuits, and gravy, Mike told John, “You know, fatigue makes cowards of us all. I feel a whole lot better now and I’m ready to take up the trail; you?”
“Me too,” John replied. So they retrieved their horses and set out once more, looking for Indian Bob.
They soon were on the same trail heading north. Mike volunteered, “If we don’t find him soon, he will be in the Indian Nation, and we may never find him.”
After an all-day ride they spotted a dead horse right in the middle of the trail.
John volunteered, “It’s a pinto. It could be the one Indian Bob stole.”
They dismounted and examined the horse to see if they could determine what killed him. There were no visible signs of injury.
“That Indian bastard probably just rode him to death, with no food and no rest,” Mike commented.
They continued riding, but now with more caution, thinking their prey might be near. Not wanting to stop to eat, they ate cold biscuits and beef jerky in the saddle.
Their caution increased as they approached a grove of live oak trees. They kept a close watch ahead and to both sides as they rode.
They were almost into the open at the end of the stand of trees. They had been watching ahead and both sides but they should have been more observant of what was overhead.
After Mike’s horse passed, Indian Bob leaped from a tree limb onto the back of John’s horse, scalpel in hand. At the instant he landed, John turned to look and the horse bucked, spooked by the sudden additional weight on his back. While struggling to stay on the horse he felt intense pain coming from the right side of his face. Blood was gushing all over his horse, saddle, shirt and jeans. He screamed, “Hey Mike, the son of a bitch cut me!” Then he drew his Colt and shot Indian Bob three times as he attempted to flee into the safety of the trees.
Mike wheeled his horse around and also shot twice. Indian Bob crumpled into a heap.
John dismounted, took a towel from one of his saddle bags, and tried to stop the bleeding. Mike neared on foot and examined the wound, saying, “Oh, hell John, it’s a good thing your horse bucked and you turned your head. He was trying to slit your throat. You have a nasty cut on your face, but a few inches lower and you would be dead.”
Mike tried to stop the bleeding but could only slow it by holding the towel tightly against the cut.
“John, we’d better get you back to Dallas and find a doctor to sew you up,” Mike told him.
“Fine,” John said, “but first I have to make sure that bastard is really dead.”
John then walked to him and put a .45 slug between Bob’s eyes.
Mike tied the body on his horse and rode double with John back down the trail towards Dallas. Mike continued to hold the makeshift bandage to John’s face as they rode. The pressure he supplied did slow the blood flow some, but John needed medical attention soon, or he would bleed to death. John was afraid to spur the horse, knowing he would die if his horse gave out on him.
Chapter 8
Recuperating In Dallas
The first house they came to had no lights showing, but Mike went to the door and banged on it until a light went on in the house. Soon a tall man in a night shirt opened the door holding a pistol. Mike explained, “Sorry to bother you, sir, but I’m Mike Ward, Chief of Police in Houston. I have a wounded deputy who has been badly cut and is bleeding profusely. He needs a doctor in a hurry or he will bleed to death.”
“Well, you bring him in here and I’ll send a man for a doctor. I’m Jeff Combs, the owner of this ranch.”
He helped get John into the house and into a bed then said, “You stay here with him until I send someone to fetch the doctor.”
Then Jeff went to the bunk house, woke up his foreman, Bill Bonds, and sent him on his fastest horse to bring back Dr. Phillips.
He explained to Mike, “Bill is taking my fastest horse, and Dr. Phillips only lives two miles from here so they will be back soon.”
The noise had also awakened Mrs. Combs, who joined them in the guest bedroom where John was in bed. She was introduced as Alice.
Alice asked, “Would you all like some coffee?”
“I sure would, if it isn’t too much trouble,” Mike replied.
She disappeared into the kitchen.
Jeff then asked Mike, “I noticed a body tied to the other horse; who might that be?”
“That is Indian Bob, a renegade Apache. He killed this boy’s parents, raped his sister, then killed two of my best officers when they were bringing him back to Houston from El Paso where he was arrested.”
John was drifting in and out of consciousness. They all hoped he would hold on until the doctor arrived.
Alice arrived with a pot of coffee and six cups. Mike eagerly drank the first cup and refilled it immediately. Alice got a clean rag and cleaned the wound on John’s face. It seemed like longer but Dr. Phillips arrived in short order.
Dr. Phillips was an elderly man but still hearty enough to make house calls in the middle of the night. He asked everyone but Alice to wait in the parlor while he examined the patient.
The doctor was in with John for the better part of an hour, when he came out of he had a lot of questions he needed answered.
“How did he manage to get a cut that was so precise with no jagged edges?”
“Why was the man so heavily armed?”
“Why was his face cut instead of his throat if his assailant wanted to kill him?”
Mike carefully explained exactly what happened, and the cut was made by a surgeon’s scalpel that only missed because the horse reared to get rid of the added weight on his back. He also explained that John was hunting down the men responsible for killing his parents and putting his sister into a comatose state by gang raping and beating her.
Then the doctor explained, “That man has lost a lot of blood and will need to rest for a week before he can ride a horse. I put 12 stitches in his face and closed the wound, but he is going to have a nasty face scar for the rest of his life. I would recommend that tomorrow he has a bath, then gets out of those filthy clothes. Then I will be back in a week and check on him and take out the stitches. And don’t try and wake him. He will need to sleep a lot until the effects of the chloroform wear off.”
“Thank you, doctor. He has clean clothes in his saddle bags, and I’ll get them for him,” Mike answered.
After the doctor left, there was still a few hours of darkness left so everyone tried to get a few hours of sleep. Mike curled up on the sofa fully clothed and was soon asleep. Alice was up first cooking bacon, eggs, and biscuits for everyone along with a fresh pot of coffee. John continued to sleep until almost noon. As soon as he heard John awake, Mike went into talk to him.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I feel like hell. That chloroform gave me the worst hangover I have ever had,” he replied.
John immediately felt the bandage on his face. Then he asked, “Am I going to have a scar?” he asked.
“Probably, but scars just make men interesting to women,” Mike answered.
“What do we do now?” John wondered.
“The doctor said you have to take it easy for a week, then he will be back to check on yo
u and take out the stitches,” was Mike’s answer.
Their conversation was interrupted by Alice bringing breakfast in for John.
“How is my patient?” she asked.
“Well ma’am, I feel hungry and dirty,” he answered.
“Well, we can fix the hunger now, and I’ll get a bath ready for you later,” she responded.
Later that afternoon Mike and John spoke with Alice and Jeff about what would happen now.
Alice started by saying, “You are both welcome to stay here as long as you want to. This is the most excitement we have had here since we ran off the Yankees years ago.”
“That is kind of you, but I am going to have to get back to Houston to make sure I still have a job. I’ll take John into Dallas with me and find a place to leave him until he is well enough to return to Houston,” Mike explained.
Jeff volunteered, “If you can wait until tomorrow morning, I can take you both into town in the wagon, and we’ll make John a bed in the back. That would be a lot easier on him, and Dr. Phillips said he shouldn’t ride a horse for a few more days.”
Mike asked John, “Do you know anyone in Dallas?”
“Well, I don’t really know them, but my college girlfriend’s parents live there, the Bigelows,” John explained.
“Do you mean Clayton Bigelow?” Jeff asked.
“Yes, but why do you ask?” John wondered.
“Well Clayton has two producing wells on the back forty of the ranch; he is really a nice fellow,” Jeff responded.
Then Alice interrupted, “And we just love the people who come to empty the oil storage tanks every week. Bob and Nita Ramsey are such lovely and friendly people. Whenever they are short on drivers one or the other of them comes themselves. We enjoy their company so much. Bob is such a good story teller and Nita is so sweet.”
“Well, I will ride to Dallas today, look up the Bigelows, and tell them John is here and see what they say. Then I’ll send a telegram to my office and tell them I’ll be on the next train after I take the stage to San Antonio,” Mike explained.
John King Bounty Hunter Page 6