Jenny agonized over her mother’s obsession with hunting down her stepfather’s killer and neglecting the ranch. Spring roundup and calf branding was not getting done and important decisions remained unmade. Much as she tried, she couldn’t get her mother to talk to her about it.
She could understand her mother grieving and in shock over losing her husband to a violent death, but something didn’t quite square. Too many unanswered questions about why her step-father was even in Dry Bone Gulch. And over the years her parents rarely talked about their life before they bought the ranch. Although Jenny had gotten along with her stepfather, he mostly ignored her and let her do what she wanted which was riding horses and exploring their range.
“Need some help saddling up?” Ruddy asked as he walked out of the barn and saw Jenny saddling her dark grey Arabian mare. He knew she would pull a face and stick her tongue out at him for offering. But the old cavalryman couldn’t resist provoking a rise from her.
“Mother asked, no ordered, me to ride out to the line shacks and bring in any cowhands I can find. It seems she wants everyone to drop everything and go out and hunt for this Walsh fellow.”
“Well, that was quite a blow to her. Give her some time and it’ll all work out. Oh, and ya better take this along.” Ruddy said as he walked into the barn and returned with a new Winchester. “This came in on the stage a few days ago. It’s a new ‘78 model .45-60 and has a lot more oomph than that old .44 rimfire you been packin’ around. An old friend of mine I rode with in the 11th Ohio cavalry works in Winchester’s New Haven plant. He sent me one of the first ones off the line. Figure nothing’s going to mess with you packing this.”
Jenny eyes got wide as she enthusiastically worked the lever action. “It feels heaver and longer than my old Winchester yellow-boy and these shells look twice as big. I love the ivory front sight. It’s a lot faster on target,” she said swinging the rifle up and looking down the barrel at a distant rock. “Oh Ruddy, are you sure I should take it? It’s still brand new.”
“Don’t worry about that. You get used to it so you can shoot another cloverleaf at a 100 paces, and I can win more bets when you humble these cowboys who think they can shoot,” Ruddy said with a wide grin and twinkle in his eye. He slid the rifle into a saddle scabbard and tied it under the off-side stirrup leather with rifle butt angling forward.
Jenny mounted up and with a wave, urged her horse to a cantor and headed east through the sage toward one of their line camps in the foothills.
Ruddy watched Jenny ride off and was about to amble over to the house when he saw dust swirling from three horsemen half a mile away moving at a fast clip across the sage toward the ranch. He studied the riders for a moment but didn’t recognize them or their horses.
Cautious from long experience, he eased over to the barn and retrieved an old .50 caliber Spencer he kept loaded behind the door. Laying the rifle casually across his forearm but easy to swing into action, he waited for the riders in front of the house.
They reined to a stop in front of Ruddy. The middle rider swung his leg over the saddle horn and slid off keeping his body facing forward while the other two stayed mounted. He was tall and thin with widely-spaced ice blue eyes that frequently swept the area as if anticipating the unexpected. His single gun, tied low and holstered in black leather was partially hidden by a tan canvas duster.
“Looking for Silvia...she around?” His eyes lingered on Ruddy for a few seconds appraising his threat potential before shifting to the house then back again.
Not one to let a stranger intimidate him, Ruddy met the rider’s stare. “Depends on who’s asking.”
Before the stranger could reply, the screen door opened and Silvia stepped out on the porch. “Will Thaxton, how are you? It’s been ages...”
“Yes, ma’am it has, about seven or eight years if I recall,” he doffed his fawn colored Stetson.
“Do come in; we have a lot of catching up to do.”
Without a word, Thaxton’s two companions dismounted. A breed with Indian features and light skin gathered the horse’s reins and walked them over to a water trough. The other rider, a Mexican found a perch on the porch railing where he could see anyone approaching from the corrals or road.
Ruddy looked around with a puzzled look, shrugged and walked back to the barn and stowed his Spencer behind the door. Uneasy about the unexpected company, he found things to do that kept him close to the barn.
Ruddy knew what type of men these were and what they did. And it was not hard to guess why they were there. He felt disgusted that it had come down to this. He considered packing his saddlebags and riding off, but thoughts of leaving Jenny and others he had grown fond of forced him to calm down.
Silvia led the way into a sitting room just left of the entrance foyer and motioned Juanita, her house maid, to bring in tea. She offered Thaxton a leather overstuffed chair while she sat across on a flowered settee. “What have you been doing since we left Carson City? I get your infrequent letters, but you don’t say a lot. The last one mentioned you were in Silver City, so I assume my two cowhands had little trouble finding you.”
“They did. Well, I spent the last few years in Colorado around Oro City and Leadville helping August Meyer deal with a few mining claim ownership disputes. Had some work in Reno and had just arrived back in Silver City when your riders tracked me down and gave me your letter. You wrote you had a problem you needed urgent help with...?”
“Yes, a man ambushed and killed James, and I need you to track him down and do what’s necessary. I think this man tried to blackmail him and that lead to a fight. You know James was good with a rifle, but couldn’t hit anything with a six gun.
“James dead? Sorry to hear that. We had some good and profitable times in Carson City and Reno. I was really surprised when you married him and left. Although you know me and him didn’t always see eye to eye. But I gotta admit that his silver tongue along with your charm and brains made you two quite a team. Almost as good as when you were dealing cards for me in Reno.”
“Well, thank you. We left Carson City kinda fast and James changed his name to Randal Crawley so we could get a fresh start here without a lot of questions.
“I understand. Anyway back to business. As you know, tracking down bad men is what me and my deputies still do best.”
“Good, will $200 in gold eagles get the job done?”
“I do reckon. Where do we start to find this outlaw you need brought to justice?” Thaxton said. His thin lips curved up slightly in a faint smile though no humor showed in his emotionless eyes.
Silvia filled Thaxton in on where Irish last ran into Walsh and the lay of the land. After a half hour remembering old times and a couple rounds of Rebel Yell bourbon, he stood up. “It’s been good to see you again Silvia, too bad it’s under these circumstances. I’ll take care of your problem and get back to you in a day or two.” He gave her a rare big smile and paused in the doorway for a quick look around before he stepped out onto the porch.
The sun was well above the eastern peaks when the three hired guns rode off toward the foothills. Ruddy watched them till they became a small cloud of dust in the distance. He was still a little annoyed and didn’t like what was going on, but decided to stick around and see how it played out.
Thaxton and party followed the trail left by Circle C riders east to the foothills. They turned north and searched the mouths of several coulees that emptied onto the valley. At the entrance of one, they got lucky and found Steed’s horse tracks coming out and Jonas’ horse tracks going in. They followed them and soon located Walsh’s dead horse and the breed tracker went to work. He pointed at the tracks. “This man goes towards the high mountains. He will try to hide among the trees and go south to get away. He is no good at hiding his tracks. But, there’s another man tracking him too. We’ll have to be careful and watch for him.”
“That’s fine. Probably a cowpoke who thinks he can track and is after a reward. Luckily the rest of Silvia’s ri
ders are milling around below in the low foothills hoping to flush him. They’re ranch hands not trackers so they shouldn’t get in way as long as they stay unorganized,” Thaxton replied sliding his Winchester out of its saddle scabbard and making sure the magazine was full.
Walsh slid down the steep slope to the bottom of a ravine. His first instinct was to follow the ravine down, but with Circle C riders covering the lower foothills, that could be suicide. He calculated his best option was to climb up the other side keeping as much cover as possible between him and those tracking him.
The trackers topped a ridge and paused glassing the area. They quickly spotted Walsh climbing up the steep side hill about 500 yards away. The Mexican slid off his horse and threw his coat on a rock for a rifle rest. He flipped up the vernier sight on his Sharps, took a deep breath, paused then squeezed off a round.
Walsh got about half way up the hillside when a small geyser of dirt erupted close behind him pelting him with dirt and small rocks followed by the echoing boom of large bore rifle. He twisted around and spotted his trackers on top of the ridge. Damn, that was too close, he thought fighting to suppress a wave of panic.
Walsh now had no doubt that these were no ordinary cowpunchers. They meant to take him dead or alive...preferably dead. He sprinted left, cut to the right and then dashed for a dense stand of spruce a few yards away as another round impacted kicking up a fountain of dirt inches away from his boot. He worked his way through the trees and only to run into a near vertical rock wall about 35 feet high. Going around either side would expose him to rifle fire from the ridge and trying to climb the rock face would be a fast ticket to meeting Saint Peter.
The sun was barely peeking over the summit as Jonas packed up his simple camp and resumed tracking. He soon realized it was going to be hard spotting Walsh in heavy cover. He decided to climb a few hundred feet higher so he could look down and more easily spot movement through the heavy stands of conifers and mountain mahogany.
After a half hour of hard climbing leading his horse, Jonas stopped on a small rocky bluff. He glassed the area below, picking out several Circle C riders far below combing the foothills. He continued looking for movement or unusual wildlife activity. A pair of scrub jays abruptly took flight from a stand of spruce across and about halfway down the side hill opposite him. Suddenly, the unmistakable booms from two closely spaced rounds from a big bore Sharps echoed and re-echoed up and down the canyons.
Grabbing his horse’s reins, Jonas led them behind the bluff out of sight, tied them securely to a dead fall and jerked his rifle from its scabbard. He jacked a shell into the chamber and pulled the hammer back to half-cock as he scrambled up an outcropping and peered over the top.
Three men shortly emerged from dense cover leading their horses, intent on following Walsh’s tracks. Slowly and deliberately they moved, reading the trail, wary with rifles in hand. Jonas watched through his field glasses hoping to identify them, but no luck. That they were hired guns and experienced man hunters was obvious. Jonas spit tobacco juice in disgust at an ant crawling up a rock.
As he watched, Jonas saw one of the trackers throw his coat over a rock to create a dead rest and fire off another round across the canyon. Fire and smoke spurted out the barrel followed by an echoing blast and a cloud of gunsmoke that drifts upward slowly dissipating in the thin mountain air.
Jonas swung his glasses in the direction of the shot and spotted a man on foot lunge up the slope and into a thick stand of spruce. He swung back to the trackers and watched them vault into their saddles and charge down the slope where he lost sight of them.
Reaching the bottom of the canyon, Thaxton and his henchmen hesitated for a moment then spurred their horses up the slope. As they approached the thick stand of trees their quarry disappeared into, Thaxton motioned the other two to swing wide and move in from the flanks while he jumped off his horse and advanced forward cautiously from tree to tree, rifle at the ready.
Walsh realized he was trapped and must make a stand against the rock outcropping...with a six shooter, thirteen rounds and a knife against three experienced man hunters with rifles. The odds certainly don’t look good that I’ll see another sunset, he thought as he hunkered down behind a partially decayed dead fall. Soaked in sweat, his heart pumping and breathing labored from running in the thin air, he fought to stay calm and to not let panic take over.
Chapter 12
It didn’t take long for Jenny’s gaited mount to cover the ten miles to one of their line camps nestled in the foothills. Another time she would have enjoyed the ride and explored a few canyons along the way. But, not this time. She noticed hundreds of cows, many with calves, scattered over a wide area and some moving up into thickly wood side canyons. No one was rounding them up for culling or branding. And she knew that if something wasn’t done soon, the herd would spread out even more. Then it would take well-nigh into late summer and require more cowpunchers than they had to get the job done. What if all the cowhands quit and there’s only me, Ruddy and maybe a couple of others to run the ranch. That would be the end of it. Jenny felt hot tears running down her cheeks. She forced those dark and discouraging thoughts from her mind and focused on the job at hand.
When Jenny arrived at the line shack, a saddled horse stood at a hitching post in front. She slid out the saddle and approached the dilapidated porch. Many shingles had blown off and many of the planks on the porch floor were loose or missing.
A rider appeared at the door. “Jenny, what are you doing out here?”
“Mother sent me out to find you and Leo and send you in. But why aren’t the cows being rounded up. It appears nobody is doing anything.”
“Leo quit and rode off yesterday. I sent word to your mother with a puncher who was going in to send out a replacement. I haven’t heard a thing back and have tried to keep the cows bunched up as much as I could. But as you can see, that’s like trying to stop the tumbleweeds...I need at least four more cowhands to get even get started rounding these critters up.”
“I know what you mean. Anyway, Mother sent me out to tell you to ride in now. I’ve got to move on to the line shack on Beaver creek and send them in too.”
“Don’t bother. They left for the ranch a couple of hours ago to get more riders to comb the cows out of the thickets along the creek and up in the foothills. They’re in there thicker than ticks on a coyote. They stopped by on the way in and were not too happy about the way things are going either. It seems everything is standing still until that Walsh fellow is caught or makes good his escape.”
“I know, but this can’t go on much longer. Please stay with us. We need your loyalty and help.”
“Reckon I can’t ride away and leave you folks in a lurch. I’ll go in see what your mom wants me to do...”
After the cowpuncher left, Jenny sat on the weathered porch and looked out over the range at the scattered groups of cattle. This ranch could really be something if Mother would get serious about it, she thought. There’s just something terribly wrong going on right now, it’s like a black cloud hanging over everything and I don’t have a clue about what’s really causing it...I sure hope Uncle Nate can puzzle all this out and can tell me what’s happening when he comes out in a day or two.
With an exasperated sign, Jenny got up, pushed the shack’s door open and surveyed the dim interior. Light filtered in from holes in the roof and cracks in walls. It was a mess. “Wow, a skunk’s den is cleaner than this,” she exclaimed disgustedly as a mouse scurried across a rough-hewn table nailed to one wall. Looking around, she found an old broom with a splintered handle and set out on what she suspected would be a futile cleaning project.
Three cow punchers from the line camps rode up in front of the main house. Silvia walked out on the porch and watched them dismount. Her eyes had dark circles under them and her usual flawless hair was hastily brushed back into a bun. “I want you men to take some supplies and comb the foothills around Beaver creek and make sure Walsh doesn’t slip through. I
don’t want to lose him if he gets by our other riders. Remember, there’s a $100 dollar reward if you get him.”
The riders shifted uneasily from foot to foot. It was obvious they didn’t like becoming a posse. They were cowpunchers not gun slingers, but they knew they may not have much choice from what they had heard. Two of them started to protest, but Silvia cut them off. “If you can’t accept the work I assign you, see Ruddy and he’ll give you any wages you have coming and you can ride on.”
They looked at each other. One of them spit a stream of tobacco juice, shrugged and said, “Fine with me ma’am.” All three turned and walked away spurs clinking to find Ruddy. They knew that at this time of year they wouldn’t have much trouble finding work on some of the smaller ranches. And this one looked like it was going to pot, so they might as well leave a sinking ship while the leaving was good.
Silvia was now left with three fewer cowhands. She stood there in shock, disbelieving what was happening. Not long ago cowhands lined up to work at the Circle C. It was considered one of the best ranches to work for in the territory. Silvia spun around and stomped back into the house slamming the door behind her.
Inside she sank down onto an overstuffed couch. Anger and frustration raged through her mind. “Why is this happening? Everything was going so well. Now it’s turning to ashes. We created a great life here and that Walsh had to destroy it. Damn him to hell forever!” Silvia screamed at the walls and then curled up in a fetal position exhausted and soon succumbed to a fitful sleep.
Walsh flipped open the loading gate of his Colt and inserted a sixth round in the empty cylinder he normally lined up under the hammer. The remaining seven rounds in his cartridge belt, he placed on a log in front of him for quick access then jabbed his Bowie knife into the dirt next to him. He could hear Thaxton’s horse laboring up the slope in front of him sending rocks and dirt flying, but couldn’t do anything but wait until he got a clear target.
Ambush at Dry Bone Gulch Page 11