by John Benteen
Issuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!
Sam Ramsey was a loner. He didn’t need anything or anybody as long as he had his ranch—a place to breed and raise the sturdy little Morgan horses that were his whole life.
But Sam lived in a time of violence; a time when bandits and cutthroats repeatedly swept across southwest Texas to plunder and rustle supplies for Pancho Villa’s ragtag army. When they finally came after his Morgans, Sam Ramsey was no match for them.
A man alone, he started out after the raiders, determined to get his horses back—or die. Sam stumbled on help where he least expected it—from a black man named Concho and a beautiful widow named Nora. They were three desperate people and they struck up a strange bargain as they set out on a trek that seemed certain death for all of them …
BIG BEND
By Richard Meade
First published by Doubleday & Co in 1968
Copyright © 1968, 2014 by Benjamin L. Haas
Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: January 2015.
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.
Cover image © 2015 by Tony Masero
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.
For Jim Henderson and Monty Wilson
Author’s Note
With the exception of Rodolfo Fierro, Villa and the other prominent historical figures referred to, and the casually-mentioned bandit Chico Cana, all characters in this novel are fictitious. So is the town of North Wells.
In 1914, Pancho Villa was, indeed, walking on eggs in his treatment of Americans, although later, to embarrass his opposition, he executed a number of American civilians and carried out the famous raid on Columbus, New Mexico, which resulted in the Army’s punitive expedition led by General Pershing.
Villa also was one of the earliest military leaders to recognize the desirability of his own air force, and did possess one.
Today, the scene of this novel is the wildest and least-visited of all American National Parks.
Chapter One
Ramsey came over the hill and saw ahead of him the ranch house and the men waiting there. Five of them, they had hitched their horses and were lounging under the brush-covered ramada of the adobe ranch house. Ramsey put the bay Morgan gelding into a high lope. His big body seemed to overbalance the small horse, but, really, the Morgan, bloodlines flawless and its muscles like spring steel, carried him easily.
As they saw Ramsey coming, the lounging men straightened up and faced him. Now he could see that they wore side arms and that there were carbines in scabbards on their saddles. This was unusual in the Texas highlands of 1914, and Ramsey’s shaggy brows went up in surprise.
When he reined in the Morgan in the ranch yard, it stopped on a dime, and Ramsey swung down. Even on the ground, he seemed to dwarf the little horse, for he was a great bear of a man in his mid-thirties, standing six feet and weighing well over two hundred. Beneath a shock of raven-black hair, his tanned face was not without humor, but just now his black eyes were guarded and neutral. He wore range clothes: battered Stetson, work shirt, scarred bull hide chaps over faded Levis, and high-heeled, bench-made boots which were without spurs, for no Ramsey-broken horse ever needed the touch of them.
“Tom,” he said, dropping the Morgan’s reins. “Jim; Al; howdy, Joe-Bob; Ralph, how you doing?” He held out a big, calloused hand and shook hands all around.
Tom Denning was, of course, spokesman for the group. He was in his early sixties, but it was said of him that he was still tough as rawhide and mean as a snake. The Denning ranch was the largest in the county, and Denning was a power in the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raiser’s Association.
“Hello, Ramsey,” he said in a harsh, dry voice. His face was long and dour, his white mustache in startling contrast to its hue of sun-bronzed leather. He wore a collarless shirt, the vest to an old suit, and a pair of ancient shotgun chaps. “We been waitin’ a long time for you.”
Ramsey shrugged. “Shoulda let me know you were comin’. What brings y’all down to this neck of the woods, all loaded for bear?”
“Not for bear,” Denning said. “For rustlers.”
Sam Ramsey stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “There’s some beer in the house. Y’all come in and tell me what’s up.”
The front room of the ranch house was a man’s place, spartanly furnished, clean as a pin, a good many books in shelves on the wall and a lot of horse-breeding journals and papers stacked beneath them. There were not enough chairs, and some of the men sat on Ramsey’s bed, while he went into the kitchen and got six bottles of beer from the food safe. Opening them, he passed them around and squatted down with his back against the wall. The beer tasted wonderful after a day on the range.
After a long swig, Ramsey drew the back of a hairy hand across his mouth. “Okay, gentlemen, what’s up?”
“I lost twenty-five head of stock this week,” Denning said thinly. “That’s what’s up. We’ve had all we’re gonna stand for, Ramsey. Shan Williams has deputized us all, and we’re gonna put a stop to this cattle-liftin’. We know these rustlers work out of the deep part of the Big Bend country. Well, we’ve each sent three of our best men on down to Saul’s place, and we’ll jump off from there. We’re takin’ plenty of supplies and ammunition and we’re not comin’ back ’til we’ve rubbed out every cow-stealer down in those badlands. We want you to come along.”
Ramsey halted the beer bottle in its upward journey to his mouth. “Kind of short notice,” he said.
“We didn’t decide we needed you ’til this mornin’. But that’s bad country for horses down there, and you’re a wonder with ’em. You’ll be packmaster and in charge of stock.”
Ramsey slid up the wall until he was on his feet, carefully keeping his temper reined in. That was typical of Denning; the old bastard thought all he had to do was snap his fingers, and everybody in the county would come running.
“Tom,” Sam Ramsey said quietly, “I’d like to accommodate you. But I can’t just drop everything and take off down into the desert on a wild-goose chase at a minute’s notice. I run a one-man operation here—”
“Yeah, we know that.” Denning’s voice was impatient. “I’ll send a couple of hands over to take care of things while you’re gone.”
“It ain’t that easy. I got eight geldin’s in the process of bein’ broke. A couple of fumble-thumbed cowhands that think you buck a horse out and it’s fit to ride, could ruin ever’ one of ’em.” He took a swallow of beer, and now his voice was firm. “Nope, gentlemen, sorry. But I can’t do it.”
Denning stood up. “I won’t take that kind of answer, Ramsey.”
“It’s the only one I can give you.”
Denning’s mouth thinned. “I don’t think you understand the situation exactly. I don’t think—”
“I understand the situation.” Ramsey was not good with words, but he was beginning to get angry now, and he spoke quickly. “I understand it fine. You folks have been losing stock. Ten head here, twenty there. I know it hurts—”
“You damn well told it does!” Jim Harrigan put in. “You know what a cow-critter’s worth now? Especially with this war in Europe—”
“I may be a horse rancher, but I know,” Ramsey said. “I know somethin’ else, too. I know you and your army ca
n’t go down in the deep Big Bend and even come within smellin’ distance of whoever’s doin’ this rustlin’.”
“What makes you so sure?” Denning challenged, eyes furious. “You ever been down there?”
“No,” Ramsey said. “But I know what it’s like. That’s the wildest country left in Texas. Nothing but a few scattered shirt-tail ranches, a bunch of abandoned mines, dry creeks and water holes, and the damnedest badlands in the world. I don’t know how many of them rustlers there are, but a thousand men could lose themselves down in there and you’d never git close to ’em. Even if you did, it ain’t but a jump across the Rio Grande.”
“If we have to, we’ll cross the Rio after ’em!”
“And that’s when you will git your tail in a crack! The other side of the Rio’s just swarmin’ with Mescan rebels and bandits. You invade their territory, they’ll rub you and your boys out quicker’n you can spit. Tom, it’s a job for the Army or the Rangers—”
“The Army!” Denning gave a hoarse laugh. “The Army says it ain’t authorized to chase cattle-rustlers. And the Rangers are already tied up. They’ve pulled every man outa this area to go after Chico Cana, that Mexican bandit operatin’ near Presidio.”
“Maybe this is Cana, too, that’s liftin’ your stock.”
“No, it ain’t. He operates farther west; this is another gang entirely. Now, I’m givin’ you one last chance, Ramsey. You comin’ with us?”
Ramsey looked at him steadily and shook his head. “No. I ain’t. I done told you that I can’t afford to leave my horses for even two days, much less two weeks. Especially when you give me no notice at all ... You better count me out.”
There was a long silence in the room then, and Ramsey was perfectly aware of the resentment and hostility that charged the air as the five cattlemen, old-timers all, rich and powerful, looked at him.
Then Denning said, heavily, “All right, Ramsey. I reckon we ought to of expected it. These fence-cutters and cow-thieves ain’t bothered with horses yet, so you figure it ain’t your fight.” His mustache fluttered as he let out a long breath. “The other boys told me you wouldn’t come, but I thought I knowed better.”
“What you mean is, you thought I wouldn’t dare turn Tom Denning down.”
Before Denning could answer, Jim Harrigan stood up. “Listen, Ramsey. We know you don’t love us and we got no particular love for you. But this is a community effort—somethin’ to benefit us all, you as much as the rest of us. That’s why Tom figured you’d come. But we knowed you wouldn’t. You don’t give a damn for anybody in North Wells but yourself.”
Ramsey said, in a carefully controlled voice, “Jim, you’ve been around here for a long time. You ever remember the time when North Wells gave a damn for the Ramseys?” He felt a savage pleasure in the way Harrigan’s eyes shifted. Then his tone changed. “Why don’t you put the same time and men into patrolling your fences—?”
“We don’t need advice from you!” Denning’s face was turkey-red. “We’ve all of us handled rustlers before, in the old days—!”
“These ain’t the old days,” Ramsey said evenly.
“Those cow-stealers down in Big Bend will think they are when we swing some of ’em,” Denning said fiercely. Then he said, “All right, Ramsey, you made your bed, now lay in it. When you need some help, don’t come cryin’ to us for it.”
Ramsey drew himself up straight. “You ever see me come cryin’ to anybody for help?”
Denning didn’t answer that. His gray eyes locked with Ramsey’s for a moment; then he turned on his heel. “Come on, men,” he growled. “We’ve wasted a lot of time and we got a long way to ride.”
~*~
Sam Ramsey stood where he was as the five stalked out and mounted up. Hoofbeats pounded, in a quick, almost angry tempo. Then they faded, and slowly Ramsey went outside. Dust hung low over the six-mile lane to the main road, but the riders themselves were out of sight. The Morgan stood patiently, ground-reined, not having moved six inches.
Ramsey led the animal to a corral that contained three other horses, unsaddled it, wiped it down with a gunny sack, and turned it loose to drink and roll. Leaning on a fence post, he watched the animal flop down, try twice, then go over on the third roll, grunting with the ecstasy of it. But Ramsey was not thinking of the horse.
Maybe not joining the posse had been a mistake. That might have been the one gesture that would have healed all the old wounds, finally bridged the gap between himself and the town. But Denning had thrown it at him too fast; there’d been no time to think, and his first reaction had been to draw back, as he always did. Yes, there was no doubt that it was a mistake, even though going would have jeopardized the work of three months ...
The sun slanted low, gilding the sides of hills, buttes, and mesas, painting purple shadows in draws and hollows, touching the sea of good grass with gold.
He could understand the way Denning felt. Revolution flamed and guttered on the other side of the Rio Grande. First, Madero against Diaz, then Huerta against Madero, and now Carranza and the famed Pancho Villa against Huerta. Almost four years of constant warfare, with Villa dominating, always up to his ears in revolution and counterrevolution alike. And now the northern border of Mexico had been picked clean, and the armies and bandit gangs and combinations of both that roved Chihuahua and Coahuila would pay dearly for gringo beef—and, Ramsey thought grimly, gringo horses.
So rustling had become worth the risk again. In Texas, the land had filled up and the cattlemen were strongly organized, and selling stolen beef north of the Rio had become so dangerous that cow-thieves were almost something out of the past. But they could not resist the safe and lucrative markets the armies below the Rio provided, and Southwest Texas was beginning to feel the effects of the waves of violence that lapped northward. There was no doubt that Denning and the others were hurting. A fat whiteface on the hoof was about the equivalent of a poke of gold.
Still, he doubted that they could flush the thieves out of the deep Big Bend. Down there, at the southernmost point of the great loop of the Rio Grande that gave the country its name, there were thousands of square miles of uninhabited desert, stark mountain ranges, some never totally explored, and probably not fifty honest inhabitants in the whole huge region. Denning was undoubtedly right—that was where the stolen cattle were going. But finding a gang of twenty or thirty throw-backs to the old wild days down there was a different matter—especially since they could jump the border at the first sign of pursuit ... Still, Denning was a veteran of the old days himself; if anybody could do it, he could.
The light had faded now, and Ramsey went back into the house. In the tiny kitchen, he cooked bacon and heated re-fried beans and opened another can of beer and sat down to his solitary meal. He was still nagged by his decision not to go.
And yet, he’d had no alternative. He raised Morgans here, the best, and trained them himself into the finest cow and cutting horses. It was a small operation, but a profitable one, and he didn’t dare leave it for more than a day at a time. Not even Denning’s offer to send men to run it while he was gone changed that. Nobody handled horses the way he did, and in two weeks ignorant men could ruin them all.
Finishing his meal, he washed up and stowed everything as carefully as any old maid. Then he stripped and took a quick shower under a homemade rig outdoors beside the windmill. Putting on clean underwear, he set the alarm clock, got into bed, read by the light of a kerosene lamp for a half hour, blew out the lamp, and went quickly to sleep. Not long before midnight, the clock awakened him. He arose, splashed water on his face, drank two cups of strong coffee, and dressed.
After he’d buckled his chaps, he took a gun belt from the wall and strapped it on. In the holster was a .45 Colt single-action inherited from his father. The .30-.30 Winchester and its soft, well-oiled scabbard that he carried outside was also a legacy.
There was no need to use a rope to saddle a fresh horse; every mount in the corral was trained to come at a whist
le and to stand motionless while it accepted the bit.
Ten minutes later, he rode at a high lope away from the home ranch toward the pasture that held his breeding stock. The moon was full and high, its light turning ridge and butte and grassland to silver, a sight to make a man catch his breath. At this altitude the wind was cool, even on a summer night, and Ramsey’s heavy jacket felt good.
Another twenty minutes, and fifteen Morgan mares raised their heads and pricked their ears as he came into sight. One old mare and Dancing Man, his fine stallion, took a few wary steps toward him until they caught his scent and relaxed. He rode on around them, opened and closed a gate, and then he was in the pasture with his thirty-two young three- and four-year-old geldings, most of which were already receiving training of some kind. Grazing among them were the twenty head of wild Mexican steers he kept, not for beef but for training purposes. At the sight of a mounted man, most of them spooked and lumbered off, tails high.
Everything was in order. Sam Ramsey relaxed, bent a thick, muscular leg around the saddle horn, and, full of pride and satisfaction, smoked a cigarette. From now until almost dawn, he would keep watch over his horses.
He had been doing this ever since the rustling started. It was a grueling schedule for a man alone, but the idea of hiring anyone to help him had never even occurred to Sam Ramsey. Besides, as he would not trust Denning’s men with his Morgans, neither would he trust any pickup cowhand.
Not that he really expected trouble. His ranch was small, its southern border protected by the range of Jim Harrigan’s huge Lazy H that adjoined it. The cattle of the big ranchers, whose spreads extended south for miles, were far easier and more tempting pickings. Still, he would take no chances. For his horses were his life’s work and all he had in the world.
That thought filled him with a strange restlessness. It was something that had bothered him more and more of late, something mixed up with the frequent, overwhelming desire that occasional bouts with the Mexican girls in North Wells no longer totally relieved. It had taken him a while to search out its cause, but at last he’d figured it out. He was getting on into his thirties and it was time he got himself a woman, somebody with whom to share what he had built up and who would bear him some children to pass it all along to. It surprised him how urgent that need in him had become.