Texas Trails 1

by Patrick E. Andrews

  She nodded, and walked him out the door to his horse. One more kiss, and Rawley mounted to ride slowly out of the ranch yard. He paused at the gate to wave back to Nancy, then headed out onto the Diablos.

  Nancy stood there long enough to watch him ride into the growing gloom of evening. Then she turned and walked back to the house, feeling both happy and sad at the same time. She was glad the man she loved returned her affections, but sad that they couldn’t spend more time together.

  Nancy went to the parlor and lit a lamp, turning it up enough to read. She had a copy of a romantic novel she’d purchased from a traveling salesman passing through more than a year previously. She’d considered the book silly before, but now was in the mood to read about a love affair.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d sat there, lost in the book, when the sound of Tim riding up interrupted her. She went outside to meet him. The sight of her brother wasn’t at all pleasing to the young woman.

  Tim sat reeling in the saddle, his mood black. “My goddamned luck has stayed rotten,” he said. He slipped from the horse’s back, and almost fell before reaching the ground. Lurching and reeling, he got up on the porch and staggered past Nancy to go into the house.

  Nancy stood there for a while, then went back into the house and picked up the lantern. She had to see to putting the irresponsible young man’s horse away in the barn for the night.

  Thirteen

  Chaw Stevens rode silently alongside his partner, Rawley Pierson, glancing at him from time to time. The older man thoughtfully chewed on the wad of tobacco in his jaw as he pondered the current situation in his mind.

  They moved slowly along the top of Rattlesnake Arroyo, watching the cattle grazing in the large gully. Rawley couldn’t help but notice he was under some kind of scrutiny, but each time he tried to catch Chaw’s eye, the ex-Johnny Reb would quickly look away.

  Finally tiring of the game, Rawley urged his horse next to Chaw’s. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Huh?” Chaw replied with what he considered an expression of complete innocence on his whiskery, grizzled old face. “Now what makes you think I got something on my mind?”

  “Don’t act so all-fired smart. You got a burr under your saddle,” Rawley said. “Let’s get it out and maybe you’ll feel better.”

  “Well,” Chaw said slowly. “I was just wondering about something, that’s all.”

  “Yeah?” Rawley remarked. “That ain’t hard to figger out. But what do you got flitting through your mind?”

  “Well,” Chaw repeated slowly again. “I was just wondering about what’s gonna happen after the cattle drive up north to Kansas.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well—”

  “If you say that one more time I’m gonna stop talking to you,” Rawley threatened.

  “I was wondering if I’d be going down to Delbert’s place alone after the cattle drive,” Chaw said rapidly. “What I need to know is if you’re coming back here to the Diablos and the Circle H Bar.”

  Rawley grinned, enjoying the chance to tease his old pal. “Why, Chaw. What makes you think I’d come back here to this particular range?”

  “On account o’ when you went back to fix that corral yesterday, you was gone long enough to build a dozen new ones,” Chaw said. “Then you bring that ham and biscuits back with you. I might add that them was buttermilk biscuits.”

  “So what?” Rawley asked.

  “I figger Miss Nancy went outta her way on account o’ it was you that went back to work on the ranch,” Chaw said.

  “That don’t mean nothing,” Rawley said, enjoying himself.

  “And you had a real dumb look on your face too,” Chaw said accusingly. “Fact o’ the matter is, you look kinda dumb right now.”

  “Maybe I’ve always looked kinda dumb.”

  “I gotta admit you’re right about that!” Chaw spat a stream of tobacco juice. “But this time it’s a differ’nt kinda dumbness with a lotta stupid grinning. Now tell me straight out—have you and Miss Nancy come to a understanding?”

  Rawley nodded. “I reckon I gotta tell you. Yeah. We’re intending for each other.”

  Chaw nodded, then smiled and offered his hand. “I’m glad to finally see it happen. Best wishes for a good life from your old pard here.”

  Rawley shook his hand. “Thanks, Chaw. I didn’t know if you’d approve or not.”

  “Damnation, yes, I approve!” Chaw said. “Just ’cause I ain’t the marrying kind never meant I figgered it best for you. She’s a fine young woman—though I’d prefer a nice, broke-in widder myself if I was to hitch up with a gal—and I know you two is gonna do fine together.” He paused. “But I think you’d better plan on starting your own spread. I don’t think the Circle H Bar is gonna be the place for either of you.”

  “Why not?” Rawley asked.

  “On account o’ here comes Tim Hawkins riding over here and he looks as riled as a puma with his tail caught in a barbed-wire fence.”

  Rawley turned and looked to see Tim galloping toward them. From the way Tim whipped his reins, it was easy to see he was in a bad temper. The young man drew up his horse in a cloud of dust and shower of dirt clods.

  “Goddamn you, Pierson! You son of a bitch!”

  Rawley’s hand dropped to his pistol handle, but he controlled his raging temper. “I’ve shot men for that,” he said coldly. “And I’m at the point where I’m telling you now. Watch how you speak to me.”

  “You stay away from my sister!” Tim snarled.

  “Did she tell you to tell me that?” Rawley asked, knowing then that Nancy had undoubtedly let the young man know of their romance.

  Tim unbuckled his gunbelt and wrapped it around the saddle horn. “This is something where a no-good bastard gets a beating instead o’ shot like a man.”

  “You’re loco, boy!” Chaw said. “Why don’t you just calm down and back off before—”

  “Shut your mouth!” Tim shouted, sliding from the saddle. “All right, Pierson. I’m unarmed and ready to go toe-to-toe with you.”

  Rawley smiled grimly. “This is something I been kinda looking forward to.” He removed his own pistol belt and draped it across his saddle. In spite of Tim’s wild anger, Rawley knew the young man wouldn’t draw on him. He stepped out of the stirrups and approached his raging opponent.

  Tim cut loose with a wild, swinging right that Rawley stepped inside of. He peppered the young man with a couple of quick lefts, then plowed a straight jab into his jaw.

  Tim went down, rolled over on his back, and was back on his feet in a fury. There was no doubt he was Zeb Hawkins’s son. A smack to the face wasn’t going to slow him down one bit. Tim attacked ferociously, throwing rapid punches that made Rawley backpedal into a defensive posture.

  Rawley hunched his muscular shoulders and traded punches, finding some satisfaction in landing a few, but catching some hard blows on both sides of his face. Tim was a slim young man without a lot of weight, but he was fast and possessed a whip-like strength in his arms that drove his fists hard and true. Add that to pure guts and natural-born grit, and he was one hell of an opponent.

  Chaw had quickly dismounted and gathered up the reins of his own horse as well as those of the struggling combatants. He held onto the animals, controlling them as best he could while watching the raging fisticuffs that ranged back and forth on the arroyo rim.

  Tim slipped in an uppercut that rocked Rawley’s head back. Dizzy and a bit nauseous, the cowboy slugged back instinctively as his mind cleared from the heavy punch. A couple of rapid punches snapped Rawley’s head around some more and his vision blurred. Now knowing that Tim had a natural talent as a fist-fighter, he moved in closer to keep the rancher’s ability to maneuver to a minimum.

  The two grasped at each other, continuing their pummeling until, completely caught up in the fight, they stumbled over the edge of the arroyo and fell down the side. Rolling, punching, kicking, cussing, and snarling, the two fighters hit the bottom. The n
earest cattle, curious but wary, pulled back a bit as the two men struggled to their feet and went back to trading rapid punches.

  Their faces were bruised and badly pummeled by each other’s gloved hands. The heavy leather gloves with scuffed surfaces caused abrasions on their cheeks under the eyes. Neither noticed the pain as their rage and determination built up. Bleeding, sweat-soaked, and panting, the pair slammed and smashed each other for another full ten minutes.

  Finally, their strength began waning from the extreme effort. Jim Pauley and Duane Wheeler joined Chaw on top of the gully. The trio watched as both Rawley and Tim fought like staggering, drunken men, their legs watery and wavering. Then there was a lapse of time between the flurries of blows.

  Chaw handed the reins of the three horses over to Duane. “Hang on to these. I reckon the time’s come when that fight can be broke up.”

  The old man got his canteen, then carefully kept his balance as he slipped and slid to the arroyo floor. He walked up to the exhausted combatants and stepped between them. “I reckon it’s over.”

  Tim, bleeding and still furious but almost without energy, stood wavering. “Oh–no–it–ain’t—”

  “Yeah. It is,” Chaw said. He gave him a gentle push, and Tim collapsed to the dirt. He turned to Rawley, grabbing his shoulders and sitting him down. Rawley, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t move against Chaw’s strength.

  “Now,” the old man said. “You both just sit there for a bit.” He looked up at Duane. “Go over to the chuck wagon and fetch some o’ that liniment they got for medicine. These boys want a little doctoring.”

  Rawley tried to get up, but couldn’t manage it. He settled back, keeping a wary eye on Tim, who now stared at the ground in exhausted bewilderment.

  Chaw gave them each a drink of water, then splashed some of the canteen’s contents on their faces. “Well now, I reckon all this has been brought out and dealt with.” He turned to Tim. “Now if you ain’t total blind and stupid, you must know that Miss Nancy has took a real fancy to Rawley. And Rawley has returned them affections in a most honorable way. You ain’t got no reason to kick up a ruckus over something like that when ever’thing is decent and above board.”

  “I don’t like him,” Tim murmured.

  “Hell! He don’t like you neither,” Chaw said. “But he ain’t getting hitched to you, is he? And as far as I been able to determine, Miss Nancy is of a age where she don’t need no permission from you.”

  Rawley finally got to his feet. “Now looky here, Tim. What Chaw said is right. I’m obliged by a personal promise to your pa to help get them cattle to Kansas. I have also made my feelings for Nancy known to her and she said that’s fine by her. I’m gonna marry her.”

  Now Tim got to his feet, but he showed no inclination to continue the fight. “Oh, you are, huh?”

  “Yeah! We’ll leave the Circle H Bar and live somewhere else,” Rawley said. “It’s your ranch and I’ll respect that. Now if you want me off this cattle drive, just say so and I’m gone. But I’m taking Nancy with me.”

  By now Tim’s head was clear. He knew that if Rawley left, so would the other Circle H Bar hands. Even being addle-brained from a lot of punches, he didn’t fool himself into thinking the hands were loyal to him. “We got to get them cattle to market,” he said. “I owe that to my pa too. But after we reach Kansas, I’m paying you off, Rawley Pierson.”

  “Good enough,” Rawley said.

  Chaw then showed some of the instinctive intelligence and savvy he had. “I reckon this’d be a good time for Rawley to ride the south circuit for a while. You two should stay outta each other’s way for the rest o’ the day.”

  Tim nodded. Duane came back with the liniment. After Chaw applied the stinging stuff to cuts and abrasions, Rawley and Tim struggled back up to the top of the arroyo, where their horses were tended to by Jim Pauley. Rawley, wasting no time, quickly mounted up and rode off toward the south to the lookout area set up on that side of the cattle camp.

  It took him more than a quarter of an hour to reach the spot, which was the highest stretch of land on the Diablos Range. It was a ridge of sorts that rose out of the prairie to a point where it was six feet higher than the surrounding terrain. It ran for almost three miles before sinking down once again into the flatness of the rest of the countryside.

  Rawley could see for miles in all directions. The deep buffalo grass seemed almost like an ocean as the wind wafted over it, making the tall blades move back and forth in patterns that stretched to each far horizon. The sky, as always in the plains country, seemed larger and wider than anyplace else in the world. A sweet smell from blooming plants also came on the breeze. Rawley, his face aching and burning from the fight and liniment, slowly began to feel a bit better and more at peace with himself and the world.

  He felt the hard blow to his shoulder that knocked him from his horse before he heard the distant shot of the rifle.

  A little over three hundred yards away, a hired gun named Walt Deacon lowered his Winchester .44-.40 rifle and smiled to himself. He’d been tracking Rawley Pierson most of the day after spending the previous one waiting for him to show up at the cattle camp. He didn’t know what the fight was about that took Rawley tumbling down into the arroyo, but he was glad when it was over and the tall man finally rode out into the open where he could trail him to a good spot for a killing shot.

  Curly Brandon had promised him one hundred dollars cash money for the killing of Rawley Pierson. Walt Deacon had thought it funny to be paid for something he’d gladly have done on his own for the pure pleasure of it. Rawley owed him plenty after an arrest and conviction in Benton that had cost him five years of his life in the state penitentiary.

  Still grinning, Deacon swung up into his saddle and rode his horse over to where Rawley Pierson’s mount still stood on the high ground that had made him such a good target. Deacon reached the horse and dismounted, walking around to finish off the job. Then he froze in confused fear. Rawley was nowhere in sight.

  “Hold it, Walt, goddamn your eyes!”

  Deacon froze, an ice-cold stab of fear and anger coursing through him. He said nothing as he heard the scuffling footsteps coming up from the small draw below the ridge.

  “Drop that rifle now!” It was Rawley’s voice.

  Deacon wisely did as he was told, and turned around slowly when ordered to do so.

  Rawley Pierson, his shoulder bleeding, stood there with his Colt drawn. His face was ashen under the bruises there. “You was always a backshooter, wasn’t you?”

  Deacon said nothing, but instinctively stepped back from the sight of the man he’d just tried to murder.

  “I’m taking you back to the camp for a little talk, Walt,” Rawley said. “Don’t as much as blink a sneaky eye while I mount up. You got a hell of a walk ahead o’ you.”

  Deacon’s mind raced with numerous thoughts. He knew what his fate would be out on that lonely range. After a good beating to find out who’d put him up to the ambush, the cowboys would merrily string him up without so much as another howdy-do.

  “Turn around and face the north,” Rawley said.

  Deacon slowly turned, then went for his pistol, whipping the rest of the way around to face Rawley. He had the Remington halfway out of the holster when Rawley’s bullet hit him just under the chest and staggered him backward. He went to the ground flat on his back, hitting so hard that he loudly grunted. Deacon grimaced and tried to sit up. The second bullet smashed through his teeth and bounced off the back of his skull before blasting out the top of his head.

  Rawley, sore and bleeding, looked down at the dead man. He reholstered his Colt and sighed. “This just ain’t been my day.”

  Fourteen

  The strike of the heavy rifle bullet into Rawley Pierson’s right shoulder had broken no bones, but the wound it caused was extremely painful. A hunk of flesh had been gouged out by the .44-.40 slug, and the cowboy found it difficult to move that arm. He also had a blackened eye and swollen nose
from the fistfight with Tim Hawkins.

  Duane Wheeler observed his condition with typical cowpoke sympathy. “But God, Rawley, you got the looks of a feller that thought the other feller said stand up when he really said shut up.”

  Rawley grinned at that one.

  Chaw, with plenty of experience in gunshot wounds, saw to the cleaning and dressing of the injury, kneeling beside his partner, who squatted patiently and quietly throughout the painful treatment. Chaw felt it necessary to explain to Rawley what he could see. “You’re all tore up and bruised where the bullet smacked you and went in, so’s you’ll be pained after a while.”

  “I’m pained now,” Rawley said calmly.

  “It’ll hurt more later,” Chaw promised.

  Although the initial bleeding had been a bit heavy, it had quickly tapered off since no arteries were hit. Chaw bound up the shoulder, then fashioned a sling for the right arm to avoid any unnecessary movement that might open the wound and slow down the healing process.

  “You keep that wing bound up, boy,” Chaw advised him. “I’m more worried about infection than anything else. Anyhow, you ain’t gonna be worth much out here for a while.”

  “I can ride,” Rawley said.

  Tim Hawkins, his face as battered as Rawley’s, offered no sympathy. “You can stick in close to the arroyo and keep an eye out for trouble.”

  The body of Walt Deacon, laboriously and painfully slung over his horse by Rawley, was searched for any clues as to who might have put him up to the deed.

  “You say you knowed this jasper before and even arrested him once,” Fred Blevins of the Double Box said. “Maybe he wanted to get even with you.”

  “There was bad blood between us, all right,” Rawley admitted as he adjusted his arm in the sling.

  “Yeah,” Chaw said. “But I don’t think he’d trail us all the way up here just for that.”

  “He didn’t have a mask,” Ted Lawson of the Flying Heart said. “We don’t even know if he was one o’ the bunch that’s been raiding us.”