by Lou Bradshaw
Chapter 19
That light kept getting bigger and bigger, just like a light at the end of any other kind of tunnel. I could see grass, sage and cedar in my immediate range of view. Like the other end, the cedars had pretty well choked off the exit hole. But someone had hacked off some of the branches so we could get out.
We came out real cautious like, with rifles across our pommels. Those behind me had their right hands resting on the action… I had my other hand on mine. When we came out into the open, we got a bit of a shock. We weren’t on top of a plateau or in some high valley. It was a valley all right, but it was a bowl of a valley. It looked like it might have been some sort of crater. Maybe from a long dead volcano, or it could even have been caused by a comet or shooting star. I didn’t know much about that kinda stuff.
The bowl looked to be roughly two miles long and a mile wide. I could see where at least one stream came down from the mountain. There were probably more, especially if that mountain got a lot of snow. It had an irregular shape with several canyons running back into the bulk of the mountain. It would make a nice ranch, a small ranch but a nice one.
When we came out of that crack, I’d noticed that there wasn’t a streambed leading to it. Whatever had fed that stream had started at the crack. It was peculiar I thought. Maybe it’s one of those things we never learn. Then it dawned on me that this had most likely been a lake. The crater had filled with water and whatever split the entrance, had also created crack around at the back end. That would explain the streambed starting at the crack. When it drained, it never filled again.
Baca took his field glasses and went up rim to have a look around. He came back after about a half hour.
“There is a ranch over near the entrance. It looks like a cabin, a barn, corral, and several out buildings…. We need to get closer.” He told Pedro and me.
“We’ve got good cover up on the slope almost the whole way.” I told him. “Let’s just go over and take a look.”
It was only about a mile over to the ranch, which was about a quarter mile from the front entrance. We had cedar and pine almost until we were within yelling distance of the house. Baca went up among the rocks and cedar with his field glasses, while Pedro and I stayed below, but we were still at a higher level than the house, so we could see the coming and goings there. It was a busy place. Men were going from one building to another, but none of them seemed to be doing any kind of work… they were just milling around.
From my vantage point, I could see a full corral, with maybe a dozen or more horses, and more in a pasture a few hundred yards away. If those horses in the corral represented a horse per man, then we had some work to do.
I wasn’t close enough to be able to see any faces, all I could see was the shape of a man walking to or fro… coming or going. I couldn’t tell if a man was wearing a dark colored shirt or a black one. It was futile for me to try and count individuals. I’d have to wait till Baca came down; maybe he’d have better luck with his field glasses. So we waited.
After about an hour by the sun, Baca came back down with his news. “There are at least ten men down there. They are all of a rough lot, and all are wearing pistolas… low and tied down. Some are wearing two pistolas. They look like fighting men.”
I asked about the layout and he said, “The main house is small but large for a cabin. There is a bunkhouse, a barn, and two sheds. I watched a man go into one shed and bring out a woman… he pulled her to the other shed…. He took her back later and bolted the door.”
I didn’t need him to tell me what those sheds were used for. There was no mistake that we had found the right place. The question we had to answer was, What were we going to do about it? We were greatly outnumbered and we had no plan. I looked to Baca since he was the professional, and I was just a country boy trying to keep Frank Daveys off my trail.
He looked at me and said, “You have a plan?” I guessed he was about as stumped as I was.
So I said the first thing that came to my mind, “Well, Senor Baca, what I’d do is slip down there tonight and see if I can get an idea of how many women are being held and, and what, if anything, Daveys is planning…. If I run into anyone, I’d stand a better chance of blending into the bunch than either of you… especially in the dark.” As soon as I had finished saying it, I asked myself, Why the hell did I say that?
Baca looked at me for a long few seconds and nodded his agreement saying, “Si, it will have many risks, but I think it is a good plan.” I asked myself that same question again. I didn’t get a good answer that time either.
Looking over that set up, it looked like a nice little layout. I couldn’t imagine anyone in this ragged bunch ever putting such a place together. The buildings looked well made, if poorly maintained. It was easy to see that it had gone to hell over the last few years. Maybe the builder had just abandoned it. I’d only seen a few cattle out on the flat. Or maybe old Frankie boy had just moved in and taken it over… if that were the case, I’d venture to say that the owner would never be seen again.
* * *
The sun was slow going down, which gave me time to think and study the layout. While I was sitting and thinking, I was carving on that little cougar. Carving was something that helped me calm down, and it sure helped pass long empty hours. This carving was about done… I’d be looking for another chunk of wood soon.
A couple hours after sundown, I put my tomahawk in my belt, checked the loads in my colt, stuck my extra sixgun in my waistband, and started walking the quarter mile down to the ranch. It was dark but not as dark as a banker’s heart dark. There was a little quarter moon shedding some light, but it wasn’t enough to cast distinct shadows.
When I reached the back of the house, I moved up under an open window. There was a poker game going on and some talk back and forth. Someone said, “Well, fellas, I’m just about ready to give it up and go hit the sack. If we’re ridin’ out in the moanin’ we better git some sleep.”
“Aah”, one of the others said, “Ten of us out looking for one old coonskin, that’s like takin’ free money…. Sit down and play another couple hands…. Somebody pour him a drink.”
Ten bounty hunters looking for one man… well, that didn’t seem fair odds. If they come on me in a bunch, I’d be a short sentence in the history books… if they split up, I’d have a better chance, but I’d be dodging them for months or years.
“Say, Rupp, you been down to the sheds yet?” That was Baites voice.
“No, not yet… I was thinkin’ to git down there before we left in the mornin’, before we left.” He answered.
“You better hurry because those four gals are gettin’ plenty wore out… you new boys have been usin’ ‘em up purty fast… don’t know if they got of anything left. There was five of ‘em, but one tried to run away, last week, and Frank shot her as a zample…. He’ll probly shoot ‘em all before we leave, but don’t worry, we’ll get us some more when that mountain man is done with.”
“He’d shoot ‘em?” someone asked.
“He done it a couple a times before, but we always get more… sometimes we get a Injun gal. Once we got us a white woman… hung herself, she did.”
I stuck around for a bit, but the conversation turned to cards and tall tales, so I scooted out of there. I had a notion to turn those women loose, but if they saw a gringo come in, they might not understand. I’d best bring Baca down here, and let him deal with the women.
I laid it out for Baca, and told him that we had till morning to get those women out of there, if they were going to ever leave alive.
It was well past midnight when Anjel Baca and me left Pedro alone in the pines. I’d taken the saddle off my horse and was leading him. Baca was also leading his but left the saddle on it. My thinking was, if we could get those women riding double and bareback, they’d be less likely to try and race out of there. And if one or more of them was a poor rider, she’d have help.
I had a hunch, if my horse were pointed in the right direc
tion; he’d go straight to that back door crack in the wall and down the creek bed. From there, they’d have to follow the trail out and hope they ran into some help.
Leading our horses, we covered the distance in good time. I didn’t expect a night guard to be out. If they had a guard it would be at the main entrance. We tied up behind the shed that had the women locked inside. Before we went inside, we went to the corral and took two horses out. When we got back to the shed, Baca slipped inside. I saw a match flare and heard a muffled commotion inside. Then Baca opened the door a crack and said, “Only three are here. One was taken to the other place not long ago. You know the place?” I did.
It was only about thirty feet to the other shed. I could see a dim light coming from the cracks in the crudely made building, so I slipped through the door. I could see a small candle burning in the corner to my right, and a young woman cringing in the opposite corner. A figure in a broad brimmed hat and range clothes was tugging at her arm. His back was to me and in any sense of fair play, I should have said something to him like Let her go or something like, turn around, so I can kill you. But being the low down sort that I am, I just flung that tomahawk at the middle of his back, that’s where it went.
The young woman yanked her arm away from his loosened grip, and then she sunk into the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees. I pulled my hatchet from the man’s back and turned him over with my toe. He was still alive for the moment; his eyes were wide and bright as he stared at me.
“Sorry, friend, you lost your turn.” Then I turned him face down.
The woman was scared to death as she sat there like a ragged bundle shaking with fear. “Senorita, you have to come with me now.” I told her in Spanish. “Your Guardian Angel is waiting for you.” She gave me her hand like someone who has accepted her fate… I don’t think she understood what was going to happen. I grabbed a filthy blanket from the cot in the corner and wrapped it around her.
By the time we were out the door, Baca had the others already mounted and had been given instructions to let the sorrel take them out of the valley and down the mountain. He pointed the direction they should take and warned them to go slowly. I lifted the last one up behind the one riding single and we sent them on their way.
The last thing we did was open the corral gate, and then I set a little fire inside the barn. It would take five or ten minutes for it to catch enough to be seen by anyone in the bunkhouse. Given the luxury of time, he led his horse and I led the other one out of there. Once we were well away from the ranch yard, we put the horses on the ground and held their heads down.
As the flames started rising, the other horses in the corral busted through the open gate and headed for the wide open pasture area. The whole place came alive all at once. Men came running from the main house and the bunkhouse trying to fight the blaze.
Baca and I kneeled there with rifles and took target practice. Each of us had shot three times and accounted for two men being dropped before there was any return fire. We had no way of knowing if those downed men were killed, hurt or just clumsy. I doubted if half of those out there were armed. If they were it was probably only with sixguns. A few pistols barked at us. We took a few more shots, but with fewer visible targets to be seen, so we let the horses up and took out for the cover of that ridge.
Pedro didn’t seem too surprised to see us; I reckoned he’d been riding with the Anjel long enough not to worry. They’d be plumb stupid to come after us in the dark, but we kept a guard through the rest of the night.
When daylight came, we took stock of our position and our chances, which weren’t overwhelmingly good. We figured that they had found the women missing by now and found that body in the love shed. With the tomahawk hole in that fella’s spine, they had a pretty good idea that I was around. But did they know I wasn’t alone? With all the turmoil around the sheds and barn, the night before, they’d have to come out pretty far from the ranch yard to pick up our tracks.
When we had been shooting at them from the dark, we were close together, so they wouldn’t have been able to tell how many were shooting. We went back and forth with ideas as to what do we do now? Baca suggested we move down into the pines and scrub and wait for them. My thoughts were to stay where we were and make them work harder for it. We had enough food and water for about three days. We could take a defendable spot and make them earn it.
By hand signals and grunts, Pedro argued for separating and moving and moving up and down the hillside as needed. In other words, go Injun on them. Sure, it would thin us out, but it would thin them out as well. Instead of having ten men trying to root out three men, they’d have to split their forces. As long as we were mobile, we could give support to each other if they tried to overrun one man. It was a good plan.
We had the advantage of cover. They would have to cross open ground even to get near to where we were. It was settled, then. Deciding who went where was the next step. I went toward the main entrance, Baca took the other wing, and Pedro would take the middle. God help us…
Chapter 20
We moved out to our positions, with Baca and me moving out about five hundred feet from Pedro. That would effectively give us coverage for roughly fourteen hundred feet. If they were able to flank one of the end pieces, then we’d have to close in. We were by no means sitting pretty, but I’d much rather be where I was than to be coming across that open ground at us.
Each of us had plenty of ammunition, jerky and water. We didn’t know how much time we’d have, so why not sit back and enjoy the mountains and the morning sunlight. Ten men looking for one man would have to feel pretty confident. They had numbers, but we had the surprise of more guns than they expected. Somehow, that little fact made me feel better… but not great.
The morning became afternoon. They were busy at the ranch rounding up saddle stock. They herded them into a patched up corral. I had no idea if their gear had been burned or not. If it had, then they’d have to come at us bareback. That’d just make ‘em a little madder. As far as I was concerned, they could get as mad as they wanted to. They were still going to have to earn every dollar they got for this scrawny hide.
Then they came. There were nine of them jogging out of the ranch yard. About a hundred yards out they formed a scrimmage line like a troop of cavalry. They were going for the center. I guess they figured to overwhelm the middle and then run me down.
I was on the move to help cover Pedro’s flank. I moved down into the pines to make sure no one got in here. At about two hundred yards, they charged. Pedro opened up from above and I opened fire from a lower level on the right. Then I heard Baca from the far left and low. We were all pouring lead into the charging men.
When the attack broke, there was a man down, a horse running loose, one horse was down, and a man climbing on behind another rider. The first attack was broken, but we had no doubts about there being a second attempt and a third. I reloaded.
What I was pretty sure of was, they wouldn’t try again before nightfall. That meant I could catch a couple hours of sleep before dark. I was trusting that one of the others would be awake. I leaned back and rested my head on my bedroll with my Winchester in my hands.
It wasn’t comfortable, nor was it an easy few hours of sleep but it gave me the little bit of rest I needed to get me through the night. I sat there chewing on a piece of jerky, hoping that we’d all see the sunrise tomorrow. I had no illusions of a long life, but I was hoping for a longer one than I’d had up to now.
When the sun went down, I moved down the slope and into the lower levels of pines and cedar. I carried a loaded rifle, two pistols and of course my hatchet. I also brought my bow and a few arrows along. There would be some light out in the open, but it would be dark as sin under the trees. I kept myself well hidden in the trees.
The night dragged on, and what little moon we had was beginning to be covered with clouds. It was getting really dark out there. It’s funny what a fella’s eyes will do to him when he’s trying to see t
hrough the dark. Now, dark is just the lack of light as far as what it really amounts to, but when you’re straining to see what’s out there, it becomes a real thing. It becomes like something solid between your eyes and what you’re looking for. You get the feeling that you need to take your hand and wipe that dark away.
It was getting so dark that I was having to rely on my hearing and experiences in the wild to tell me what I couldn’t see. And there was an awful lot that I couldn’t see. What my senses were telling me was, there was somebody out there and they were pretty darned close…too close.
“Mister,” I said, “you need to turn around and head on out…” That was all I got out before he started banging away with his sixgun…. Three… four… five shots came from the same location, but they went in all directions. I’d been crouching low behind a tree, and I could hear that lead smashing into the forest. I just stood up and let go of that drawn arrow.
He grunted and let out a cry that sounded more like a yell of surprise than one of pain. Then he started calling hi partner. “Jake… Jake… I’m hit…ooongh… Dammit Jake… help me…. Jake, I think, I got a arrow in my gut… Jake… Jake?”
It wasn’t more than a half minute before I heard a horse take off from a short way out. It was heading for the ranch. He heard the horse too because he yelled out, “Jaaaake!”
“Mister,” I told him, “there ain’t much I can do for you…. you just bought your chips in the wrong game.” And I left him there.
I didn’t figure any of them would be coming back to this end tonight, so I moved up slope and toward where Pedro was stationed. I’d have to be very careful not to get shot by a friend down there.