Once a Ranger

by Dusty Richards

  “Holy cow, boss man, you gave me the jitters. But I will politely try to do my best.”

  “You ever been married?”

  “My wife, Manda, died five years ago. It’s been a long time. I miss her. Always will. But I’d sure be proud if what you say could happen does.”

  “You have my best wishes for it to succeed.”

  “You mind if I go see about some things? My swamper can handle this place.”

  “No, go ahead. I’ll be here.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Leaning back in the chair, Guthrey nodded to himself. They’d make a good pair. He went through the wanted posters that were fresh. Not a face showed up he’d seen lately. The Combs’s funeral director’s aide, a young man, brought him all of Peters’s things. There was a pocket watch that still ran. A short pencil, a log book in a leather cover that no doubt had all the information about his cattle in it and probably his expenses and debts listed. Twenty dollars in folding money and gold coins plus a medal from the Civil War.

  He would deliver them to Olive. What else? He hoped his men could find something around the windmill to point a finger at someone. None of the men he’d assigned to look after the two ranches had had time to get there yet. He could only hope there weren’t any more murders.

  Thayer and his wife, Nell, came by to see what they could do for Olive and him. On a trip into Steward’s Crossing they got the word, and the news was spreading fast. He sent them to Cally, figuring the women were back by that time.

  By nightfall several ranchers had ridden in to offer him their help. He told them to be aware and go in pairs to work cattle away from the ranch house. On the desk he made a list of those who’d checked in.

  Baker and Zamora returned with little information or evidence. The night man named Pat McCaney came in, and the deputies and Guthrey left to go home. Guthrey felt disappointed but he’d done all he could—no news of any more killings was good news. But these men had struck once, and they’d do it again. He walked down the hard caliche hill in his high boot heels, deeply engrossed in his own thoughts.

  “I think Olive’s better,” Cam said, meeting him halfway. “I told her I’d pick her up and do anything she needed done. She accepted my offer. The funeral is at ten A.M.”

  “Good. Very thoughtful of you.” They shared a nod in the twilight and both went on.

  Cally met him with a hug. “That man you sent to help her, Cam Nichols, is sure a nice man. Big as a bear, but polite and kind. He really helped us today.”

  “Good. He’s fine man.”

  “He’s getting a second seat put on the buckboard for the funeral tomorrow. It’s at ten. Can you come?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Come on. I have food cooked, and they’ve brought more dishes than the three of us can ever eat.”

  “I bet so. Lots of folks came by the office and offered their help today. We will find the killers.”

  “Did your men find anything?”

  “No. Nothing to find but tracks.”

  “I understand. We must be quiet. She’s finally sleeping.”

  He agreed.

  After the meal, with the sun down, the two of them slept in the hammock in the backyard.

  In the morning, Guthrey dressed for the funeral and had breakfast with both of them. Their conversation at the table over the meal was polite. Olive mentioned Cam and thanked Phil for providing such a nice man. He nodded and then went to the office.

  Cam was at the desk when he came in. “Have you read his tally book?”

  “No, why?”

  “I was wondering about his herd numbers but that’s not important. Read what he wrote.”

  Guthrey read the page written in pencil.

  Three men rode up. One was Mex. Clark, Freeman, and a Box K horse brand—

  Then the writing ended. That was the last thing written in the book.

  “This is the last thing he wrote,” Guthrey said. Shocked by what Cam had discovered, he slumped in the chair. “He wrote the names of his killers in here. Lord, this is powerful. Don’t tell a soul about this. After the funeral I’ll talk to my men and we’ll start to unfold this information. By damn, Cam, you found a deep secret that survived his murder. Have a good day with Olive today. It will be a tough one, but you being there will help her. We’ll get these killers.”

  He filed the tally book in a drawer in the open safe. He didn’t need anything or anyone to get it. Thank you, lord. You have saved me.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE PREACHER’S VOICE carried over the strong, hot wind. Women’s full dresses and hats were close to being swept away in the oven like blasts that struck the hill where the dirt was piled beside the grave and the pine coffin that would deliver Mark Peters to the hereafter.

  Guthrey stood beside Cally and Cam loomed next to the veiled widow Peters. The oration was too long, the stinging winds punishment for the sinners. Guthrey grew weary standing beside his wife, on his feet through the entire service, until finally the last amen silenced the oration.

  Word was passed that lunch would be served after the funeral at the Methodist Church, and friends went by Olive to give her their sympathies. Cam was there to help her and added what needed to be said in response to the folks trying to express their concerns to her. In his bright white shirt and a short black tie, the gentle giant looked like a guardian beside her on the scene.

  Folks began to disperse and most headed for the meal at the church grounds, Guthrey and Cally among them. Lots of people were in town and most were very upset about Peters’s murder. Guthrey asked several men he trusted to find some time to help him get the men responsible for doing it. He was sure the note in Mark’s tally book would lead him to the killers—but it would not be easy to sort out. He obviously knew them well enough he wrote their names down before they rode up to him.

  These men had not been seen by anyone so far as he could tell when they made the three raids. There were more than three men involved in those raids. They all occurred within a few days, but then had they concealed themselves. Eight men, their horses, and a housekeeping outfit all had to be concealed somewhere. That place might be something someone had seen recently. He and his men needed to find this thread to their presence when they were all close in the county for those first raids. Three men came back from God knew where to lynch Mark. They could have been concealed, but likely someone saw them come and go. He needed those witnesses for the trial when he caught these men. They must not have had masks on when they confronted Mark—but he was suspicious enough to have written down their names and a brand.

  His main deputies were back when he reached the office late that afternoon. Guards were supposed to be in place at the other two ranches the night riders had threatened, and there were no reports of any other attacks. The door was closed to the jail and the hall.

  “I have something for you to see. I want no word about it told to anyone. In Mark’s tally book, Cam found a note. Last thing Mark wrote in it was this.” He handed Baker the leather-covered book, open to the names.

  “Mex, Clark, and Freeman and a Box K branded horse. I don’t know who this fits but it must be the three that lynched him.” Baker handed it to Zamora.

  “One thing I say, he knew them on sight.”

  “Who uses a Box K brand on their horses?” Zamora asked.

  They shook their heads and turned up their hands—none of them knew, Guthrey decided. He spoke up, “I can wire Preskit and find out from the state brand inspector. It may not be registered in Arizona, but they can find out if any other states use it. We have a small clue. Thank God that Mark left us this tally book.”

  Baker removed his hat and scratched his head. “Zamora and I looked hard at those signs. I think they swept some away. We have no idea where they rode off to after they left the windmill.”

  Guthrey nodded that he understo
od. “Let’s keep this to ourselves. I think we have enough things to go on. Now we need to find out where they stayed. We also need an Apache tracker who can read tracks. They say they can track a titmouse over a rock.”

  “There are some good ones. We used one over at Socorro.”

  “I wonder if San Carlos would lend us one.”

  “You met them and bought Cochise from there. You know them.”

  “There’s a wire up to there. They report runaways on it and the message is sent through Tucson,” Zamora said.

  “I’ll wire them tomorrow.”

  “If not, General Crook at Fort Bowie might loan us a couple of his scouts.”

  “Good. We need a tracker first, I guess. Thanks, men.”

  “I’ll test the water tomorrow. Cam is off for a few days to help Mrs. Peters, so we all might need to keep an eye on the jail.”

  “He did a damn good job out there today,” Baker said. “Who’s on the execution party that’s coming up?”

  “Cam said he’d be back for that. The three of us, unless either of you want to be excused?”

  “We work for you,” Baker said.

  Zamora quickly agreed.

  “Thanks. I’m going home to my wife. You two do the same.”

  * * *

  GUTHREY CHECKED AROUND. The night jailer said he was fine, and so Guthrey walked back to the jacal. A light was on and Cally rushed to hug him when he arrived.

  “Been a long day?” she asked, sweeping his hat off as he kissed her.

  “A real long one. I’ll wash my hands after I feed—”

  “Wash up. I already fed the team and the big one. Your man took Olive home to her ranch and I have beef roast fixed and some cold biscuits. What happens next?”

  “You can’t say a word about this. In his tally book, Mark left three IDs and one horse brand we think fit the killers.”

  “Really? How wonderful. Your man Cam was sure a big help for Olive. He’s a very sincere man, isn’t he?”

  “He said his wife died five years ago and now he is very interested in Olive. No better time to meet her than now, when she really needs someone. He’s polite and smart.”

  “I hate to bring it up, but next week is the execution?”

  “I have it marked on my calendar. Yes.”

  “I’m not vengeful, but that day is important to me. I’m not certain I can stand it, but I feel strongly it is my duty to be there for Dad.”

  He nodded. “I understand. It has been long time coming. The man I captured had no remorse about killing your father. He may have regrets on the scaffold, but I don’t expect him to apologize. He shot your father thinking it would give him a chance to buy your place and thus have the gold source.”

  Wrapping her arms around him, she muttered into his vest, “What would have happened if you hadn’t come here?”

  “You’d not have a dusty lawman to hug.”

  She looked up and the tears sparkled in her eyes. “Oh, Phil, much more than that.”

  “I want to eat, clean up, and share your bed.”

  “I can hardly wait.” Then as if realizing her remark sounded bold, she put her hand to her mouth and winked at him.

  “You are a real rascal. Good, let’s eat.”

  After supper he took a bath in the barrel and she shaved him. They blew out the lamps and went to bed. Two honeymooners in their own bed at last; damn, he loved having her for a wife.

  An execution and a murder to solve all would be hard work. Somewhere there was an answer—he must find that link.

  * * *

  IN TWO DAYS a telegram came with the information that a horse with the Box K brand belonging to a Lonnie Sikes in Silver City, New Mexico Territory, had been stolen a few months earlier. No doubt the animal could have been sold to someone—maybe, maybe not? There was no answer there. Silver City, Guthrey thought, must be two hundred miles away from Soda Springs. North a good ways from Lordsburg and the site of lots of mines and smelters, he’d learned while riding over from Arizona. Mines and smelting were not anything he wanted to do so he never went up there to investigate the industry.

  Still, they had a clue from Mark’s notes worth hanging on to. Guthrey’s wire to San Carlos, sent the day of the funeral, hadn’t been answered. So he dismissed the notion of finding an Apache scout from over there. Besides, he had no trail for the scout to sniff out. Days counted down slowly. He was on office duty while the deputies searched for the way the killers went or where they might have stayed. Even the “cow counters” were looking for something.

  A man dressed in Mexican cotton clothing and a straw sombrero came in on Wednesday and softly asked, with an Indian accent, where the sheriff could be found.

  “Howdy, what can I do for you, sir?” Guthrey rose from behind the desk.

  The man, holding his hat in one hand, handed him a letter with his other. “This tells all that.”

  Dear Sheriff Guthrey,

  We met when you came through San Carlos after those stage robbers. I have sent you Vancenta Carlos. He was kidnapped by Apaches as a boy in Mexico and lived with them ever since. He knows all the Apache ways about tracking and finding men. He wishes to join his own people since the Apache woman he was married to died recently. I told him you needed him and so I have sent him over to offer his services. He was always a good man here and very helpful to the agency. I hope you have work for him.

  Respectfully,

  Subagent Woodrow Styles

  Guthrey looked up at the stone-faced man. “Have a chair. Can I call you Vance?”

  The man nodded and pulled a folding chair closer to the desk. “That would be fine.”

  “I want to hire you as a deputy. I need a man who can track. He said you know how.”

  “I do.”

  “Find a room. I can pay you twenty-five a month. You will have to ride in posses and help us keep order. Maybe buy some gringo clothes. We can do that with a storekeeper. I want you to be sure that you really want this job.”

  “Oh, I do. My wife is dead. All San Carlos does is remind me that she is dead. I can speak Spanish, Apache, some Yavapai, and English.”

  “That sounds good. Tomorrow we must execute a man for murder. You saw the scaffold outside?”

  “Yes.”

  “I may get you a packhorse and send you out searching. How would that be?”

  “I can do that. What do you want me to find?”

  “A horse with a Box K brand on his shoulders.”

  “Who rides him?”

  “One of the men who killed a rancher a week ago.”

  “I can do that if he is still here.”

  “Let’s go to the store. Your white outfit is too bright for a deputy to wear.”

  “I can go as an Apache warrior.”

  Guthrey shook his head. “No. Someone might probably shoot you.”

  Vance agreed with the possibility. Guthrey grabbed his hat. “Let’s go.”

  On the way to the store, Guthrey said, “I want you to go to the crime scene and try to find where the killers were camped from there. That will be hard, I know, but they lynched a man with a hangman’s noose by hauling him up on a windmill.”

  “That was bad. Why?”

  “’Cause he would not leave, the note said. A group had threatened him with torches and masks a few days before—but he didn’t leave, so they came back and hung him.”

  “I see why you are upset.”

  “We’ll get you dressed and then you can go search that country over there looking for something and a Box K branded horse.”

  * * *

  EXECUTION DAY FACED him. His condemned prisoner, Burroughs, had been visited in his cell for long spells by the Methodist minister Lester McClain, praying for his soul. Cam came back for two days. A lot more somber than before but he never mentioned Olive except to say that
she was settling some at last.

  The process on that day of carrying out the sentence had begun long before sunrise. The time set by the judge was eight A.M. Guthrey asked his part-time deputies to report for duty at dawn to keep an eye on the large number of people already gathered there who were determined not to miss the spectacle. People were camped out all around Soda Springs, the smoke of their campfires strong on the wind.

  Dan had come in from the Cody Ranch the night before and promised to bring Cally in the buckboard. Things had been quiet out at the ranch that he and Noble guarded. Guthrey was relieved. His new man Vance had ridden out dressed like a gringo with a loaded packhorse to look for the raiders’ hideout.

  Armed with shotguns, his main deputies walked the prisoner, who was dressed in black, to the scaffold. Sheriff Guthrey stood on the platform. The carpenters had done a good job on its construction. The sound of gritty soles on the steps resounded as the prisoner and his jailer, Cam, started up the stairs.

  Then, in a small pocket, the assembled crowd began to sing, “Nearer, my God, to thee . . .” People struggled to their feet and the hymn’s words grew louder, until, when James Burroughs was standing beside Guthrey, the entire hillside was singing. There was no emotion visible on the prisoner’s face.

  Reverend McClain cleared his throat and in a loud voice asked for everyone to pray. “Our dear Heavenly Father.” His words were clear and directed at all those assembled, but the final prayer went on and on asking for forgiveness, for blessings for everyone there.

  Guthrey read aloud the judge’s order for James Burroughs to be executed for the murder of Harold Bridges. “Found guilty by a jury of his peers, this man should be hung by his neck until dead.”

  Burroughs stood, securely bound by ropes that Cam had made certain were tight around his legs and arms, with his hands behind his back.

  “Do you have anything to say?” Guthrey asked the prisoner.

  Burroughs shook his head.

  Guthrey announced, “The convicted man has nothing to say.”