by Lou Bradshaw
He looked at me like he still didn’t know what I was planning to do to him and said, “I am known as Raphael… Señor Gringo.” His face broke into a smile that he had no control over.
“That’s a better start than the last one… let me tell you a little story, Raphael. The night before last, when we captured those horses… Pablo, a man who is as good with horses as any I’ve ever known, brought those two horses through one of the most frightening experiences that any man or beast would ever want to live through.”
“We spent three hours on a ledge no wider than this.” I spread my hands apart to show about four feet. That ledge was nearly a mile long and many thousand feet above the valley floor. What made it almost impossible to imagine, was the fact that it was pitch dark… we didn’t even have moonlight. One missed step and you would be dead.”
“Pablo walked every step whispering into Achilles’ ear keeping him and the mare calm. And as you can see, he brought them both through. After all that, when we were so tired, we fell asleep eating… Pablo kept watch.”
“He’s earned the right to watch over Don Carlos’s horses, and I would fight anyone to see that he does.”
“Si, Señor… Benito… I did not know.”
I smiled and said, “Come on and get some breakfast… You probably haven’t eaten since last night.”
We walked over to the fire and Raphael went to getting himself something to eat and some coffee. I located Juan Domingo, who was in a deep conversation with Baca. I hesitated to interrupt, but they were finishing, and turned to me.
“We will be leaving within the hour.” Juan told me. “I will get a few things from the supply store and go. The two men from the Don’s rancho will be tired but they will sleep in the saddle… we’ve all done it… Is everything at ease with Raphael?”
“He’s a good boy, but even good boys need a spankin’ now and then… He’ll do fine.”
I wrote down a few names and gave the slip of paper to Juan. “Tell the sheriff about Battles, and the head man is someone named Dan Cope, but he’s using a different name in Taos… tell him we’ll work on that when I get back.”
“Oh, also tell him that his prisoner… Michael Flynn is with me, and I’d say he’s got the makin’s of a good Deputy Sheriff.”
Juan and his three tough men rode out with the Arabian Royalty a half hour later.
Chapter 18
We hit the trail for the KW shortly after the others left. It was the better part of a day’s ride getting there over the ground we would be covering. I had left our packhorse in Gus’s stable. The supplies were divided among the thirteen men.
Our only stop was a lay-up place just before we reached the old water course. It was the last leg into the valley down what I called the chute. I wanted to take the chute at night and be in position to hit them before first light. So we rested up and waited until almost full dark before we broke camp.
Going down the chute was a little more hazardous and foreboding in the dark than it had been in the first time. But it was nothing to compare with the pitch dark flight across that unholy ledge a few nights earlier. I put Henry Bench in the lead, and he took us down without a hitch. For the most part the chute was concealed by high banks. But those places where the water had overflowed and washed the banks away left us out in the open, so we could have no torches or even a lit cigarette.
Henry took us safely to the entrance of the valley with time to spare. At that point, we split our forces, and Bench led six of the men up the far side of the valley. They would cross over and come in behind the barn and bunkhouse. I made it clear to everyone that Angel Baca would be in charge of the party… no one objected.
We found our positions and settled in. There were still several hours of waiting until it was time to make our move. Our horses were well out of harm’s way, and we had cover to about a hundred and fifty yards from the house. It was time to pull out my secret weapon.
While talking with Gus, the founder and most prominent businessman in Ulla Mae, he told me about the mining operations in the hills around the area. Most, he said were one man operations and were barely making a living. But a few were doing all right. Nobody was getting rich, but some were doing well. One thing led to another and he started bragging about the new blasting powder that was getting real popular with some of the miners.
He called it dynamite, and it didn’t come as powder in a keg or a can, but it was packed in a rolled up pasteboard wrapper. I looked at it and couldn’t believe anything that small could have much power, but I thought what the hell… I’ll give her a try.
He showed me how to set the cap and put the fuse in and get it ready. He also told me I could tie or wrap several sticks together using one fuse and blow the whole shebang at once. Also that it would be pretty safe in a saddle bag unless maybe a boulder were to fall on it. If a boulder fell on me riding a horse that was carrying dynamite in the saddle bag, I didn’t reckon I’d know the difference.
So I devised a plan to kinda spook them boys out of there. With the help of Flynn, we carried a pair of melon sized limestone rocks out into the darkness. Limestone is normally a very light gray color, and in some cases, it’s almost white. So it could be seen in low light.
We plopped down one of those stones about half way to the house, and the other one about three quarters of the way. On the side facing us I stuck a stick of dynamite a few inches into the ground. That way the marksman would have something to locate the stick with. We were all set to open the ball as soon as the sky started to get a little lighter.
There were six of us in my party, and I hadn’t yet made up my mind who would be the one to make some noise. With me were Flynn, the two from Don Felipe’s rancho and two from Juan Domingo’s spread.
“Alright, gun bearer,” I said to Flynn, “You think you can hit those sticks with a rifle shot?”
“Top, bottom, or middle? I bloody well can… given a little more proper light, of course. I couldn’t hit that barn in this light.”
“Well, you’ll get your chance to show how good you are soon enough.”
I sent one of Domingo’s hands to go and stay with the horses, until after the third explosion. Then he could come and help. He was a game lad of about sixteen, but he was nervous. I could imagine his guts turning and churning, but he didn’t try to talk me out of it. I would expect most of us are a little scared during our first gun battle…. I sure was.
The sun was trying to push the darkness out of the valley, but until then all it had only managed to do was turn the sky gray and give form to a few of the features. There was nothing slower than time when you wanted it to move along. I didn’t think any of us were anxious to kill…or die. But we had a job to do, and we were hell bent on getting it done.
Finally, we could see the stones clearly and even see the dynamite sticks clear enough against the limestone. I picked up one of those miracle sticks with about a foot of fuse stuck in it and said, “Well, boys let’s wake up the sleepy heads.”
With that I scratched a match against a rock and when it was burning well, I touched it to the fuse. It sputtered for about two seconds and then caught. I felt like someone was holding my arm down and wouldn’t let me throw that thing. When it finally left my hand, it seemed to only go a little way before it hit the ground and bounced a couple times. It lay there and sizzled a few more seconds before I had enough sense to yell, “Duck!”
I’d never heard such a noise in my life. It was like… well it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. We could not only hear it, but we could feel it. We could naturally feel it in the ground, and we could feel it in the air. It sort of sucked all the air from us, and then threw it back at us with force. When that air came back at us it was almost a solid thing. I don’t reckon I’ll ever forget that.
Gravel and dirt fell all around us and on us. I remembered seeing a lamp come on in the house, just before I dove for cover… I guess those eggs were well scrambled. Raising my head, I looked around at my companions. Al
l I could see were really big eyes and open mouths.
“Everybody all right?” I asked, and got only grunts and mumbles in return.
Looking out from my hiding place behind some rocks, I could see the crater the explosion had left. It wasn’t as big as I would have thought, but it was plenty big enough. I figured it to be better than a hundred feet away, so it wasn’t such a bad throw after all.
I heard a door slam in the back and a half a dozen rifle shots from the barn… Baca’s bunch was on the job. I didn’t hear the door slam again, so I can only believe the person who went out didn’t go back in.
“You men in the house.” I yelled. “This is Deputy US Marshal Blue… Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands over your heads.”
Flynn, who was dug in next to me looked up at me with eyes as big as double eagles and mumbled, “Sweet Jasus!… Not a US Marshal too…. Why would you put the likes of me in wi a lawman, Lord?”
My demand to throw down their guns got the response I expected. Those inside the house started shooting in our direction. We were getting fire from the bunkhouse as well, and I was sure the boys in the barn were taking fire from the bunkhouse. It sounded like Baca’s boys were putting lead into the bunkhouse too. Of course, the logs that made up the house and the bunkhouse could soak up a lot of lead.
When the shooting settled down to a sporadic pace, I took another round of trying to talk them out of there.
“In the house.” I yelled again. “While you boys were sleepin’ last night, we were setting bombs right up to your front door. I’ll give you another chance to come out…. Throw ‘em down and come out with your hands up… We don’t want to kill anyone unless we have to. But I don’t intend to risk these men’s lives just because you’re stubborn.”
Before they could start shooting again, I told Flynn to shoot the first stick. It took him about three seconds to pull the trigger. It was magnificent. He nailed it with the first shot. I watched as that thirty or thirty five pound piece of limestone took flight and slammed through the front door frame, taking out the door and a good chunk of wall with it.
The bunkhouse door opened and a man was running for the woods. He was running in a crouch, and he might have made it if he hadn’t stopped to take a shot at the barn. Two rifles answered, one turned him left, and the other turned him right and down.
There were three windows and a gaping hole where the door had been and two bunkhouse windows visible from where we were holed up. My bunch was filling every opening with lead each time something moved inside. Things started slowing down again, so I called again.
“That’s two… I’ve got three more out there…. And the last two are really big ones…. You boys should really set guards overnight. Remember that the next time you go into the horse stealin’ and murderin’ business, folks just ain’t gonna stand for that kind of nonsesnse.”
“All you have to do is toss your weapons out, and follow them… Oh yeah, your gonna have to turn over the ones who killed those two vaqueros back in Taos… the rest of you will get to break some rocks, but them boys are gonna hang… otherwise your all gonna hang…”
“We’re gonna give you thirty minutes to think it over while we fix breakfast and have some coffee… You think it over.”
Staying behind the breastwork of rock and dirt we’d put together, I crawled over to where my new friend, Raphael was stationed and asked him to put together a smoky fire. The coffee and coffee pot were with the horses, for that matter all the pots and pans were with the horses, but they didn’t know that.
I made my way back to my position and yelled, “Twenty five minutes, Gentlemen.”
“Ain’t none of us shot them vaqueros…. They left yesterday with the boss.” Came a call from the house.
“Well then, you boys got nothin’ to worry about, except a little prison time… Just throw out your guns and come on out.”
“Don’t aim to sit in no cell for four or five years”
“Twelve minutes, Gentlemen.”
“Hey! He yelled… it was just twenty five minutes…. What’s the big idea?”
“You got a watch?” I called back.
“No.”
“Six minutes, Gentlemen.” I started counting off thirty seconds, and then I gave Flynn the signal to shoot the other rock. His bullet whined off into the air. I could see by the white mark on the rock that he was just a tiny bit high, and he saw it too. His second shot was true.
That time the stone hit one of the porch support posts, and half the overhang crashed down covering a window. About a half ton of dirt, gravel, and rocks came down on the house, some of the larger ones going through the roof and onto those below. The house itself was soundly built of thick logs, but the roof was a weakness… I’d have to remember that.
All was in chaos inside the house. It was certainly no choir of Angels making the noise that was coming from inside. It sounded to me like a convention of camp meeting preachers all trying to say their piece at the same time, and each one was using his strongest camp meeting voice. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, even though, I could hear it all.
“How ‘bout we make a deal, Marshal.”
“All right.” I said, “Here’s my deal…you come out… unarmed, and I won’t blow the house and the bunkhouse to splinters… The ruined porch sort of messed up my target, but we’ll just have to keep shootin’ till we hit it. Shouldn’t take long… then we’ll blow up the bunkhouse.”
I told Flynn and the others to start shooting at the base of the porch where it had been damaged. They all started target practicing around the underside of the porch… I didn’t expect immediate results from my threat. Most of these men were likely to be wanted elsewhere for more serious crimes with more serious consequences. But sitting there waiting for the building to blow up can be a mind changer.
After each man had sent a few rounds into what was left of the porch, a dirty white shirt tied to a rifle barrel started waving from a window.
The shooting stopped and I yelled, “You know the rules, hands in the air and empty.”
They started filing out. At first they were pretty timid about it and walked rather lightly across the porch, as if they were expecting it to blow up. Once they got off the porch, they moved along a little better. We didn’t go out to meet them because we would have been exposed to the guns in the bunkhouse.
As they approached, Flynn and Raphael went out to bring them in the rest of the way making sure the prisoners stayed between them and the bunkhouse. There were six of them, and they were a pretty ragged lot. Flynn and Raphael then walked them back behind a little hummock, where they were tied and Raphael stayed as guard.
The youngster who had been with the horses came in, and I put him in Raphael’s spot. He was much less nervous and as long as he didn’t get crazy, he’d be in little danger.
“You think you can make it to the front door, if these boys give us some cover?” I asked Flynn.
“I’ll be runnin’ so fast ye won’t see anythin’ but a blur.”
“Good, because if you slow up, I’ll run right over you… We’re gonna work on the bunkhouse from the back windows of the house.”
I got the attention of the others and told them what we were planning. We moved to the far end of our line, and on my signal they started hammering away at the windows of the bunkhouse, and we started running.
A hundred and fifty yards isn’t far to run, but when you’re out in the open and running in a crouch it seems more like a hundred and fifty miles… all up hill. We were only actually in the open for about a hundred yards until we were hidden by the house. Once we were through the door, our boys quit shooting.
There were two windows and a door in the rear of the house facing the bunkhouse, which was about fifty feet away. It was graveyard still, until a shadow of a hat appeared on the second of the three windows facing us. When the shadow moved to where another inch would have exposed a face, Flynn pulled the trigger. He sent splinters from th
e window frame flying, and the shadow disappeared. It was all quiet again.
“You in the bunkhouse… I’ve got a bomb under the corner of the building, but I ain’t got an angle from where I am. But I’ve got more dynamite that I’d bet ten dollars I can throw through that nearest window.”
We could hear the rats scurrying around across the floor; they were trying to get as far away from that window as they could.
“Well maybe I’ll just throw it on the roof.” I called out. That should take care of the whole room…. Are you ready?”
“Wait! Hold on! I’m… we’re coming out!”
“Hands empty and in the air… Through the back door…. You hear that, Baca. Shoot anyone with a gun.”
“Si, con fevor.” Baca called back.
“Hear that, fellas? He said it would be a pleasure to shoot anyone carrying a gun.”
The back door opened and they moved out. We were out the door and around the bunkhouse before Baca’s men had the four men tied. It was the same four who had tried to pick a gunfight with him back in Ulla Mae… They didn’t seem too happy about meeting him again… There’s just no pleasing some people.
When we had all ten prisoners sitting in a circle in the front yard with thirteen guns to their none, I started in on them. I saw two of the men, who had been with Collins back in Taos. If I recalled what Battles had said, their names were Bailey and Turner.
“Bailey,” I said and one of the two looked up, you know me… Back in Taos you wanted to shoot me… What was that all about?”
“That was all Collins… He was mad because your horses broke away and went home, and they took some others with them… We worked hard getting’ those horses and lost out on some bonus money.”
“I hate to tell you this, but I went in and got those horses and took ‘em home. So I reckon he did have a reason to be mad… Where is he now?”
“Kade and him went back to Taos with the boss after you stold those fancy horses back.”
“Who’s the boss… what’s his name? Why’d they go to Taos?”