“Jest one,” I said. “War Smoke, right on the Arizona line. Tell yore folks to keep out of it. It’s a hangout for every kind of a outlaw. I jedge yore boys ain’t handy enough with weppins to mix in sech company.”
“We don’t want no trouble,” says he. “I’ll tell ‘em.”
So we rolled along, and the journey was purty uneventful except for the usual mishaps which generally happens to tenderfeet. But we progressed, until we was within striking distance of the Arizona border. And there we hit a snag. The rear wagon bogged in a creek we had to cross a few miles north of the line. They’d been a head rise, and the wagons churned the mud so the last one stuck fast. It was getting on toward sun-down, and I told the others to go on and make camp a mile west of War Smoke, and me and the folks in the wagon would foller when we got it out.
But that warn’t easy. It was mired clean to the hubs, and the mules was up to their bellies. We pried and heaved and hauled, and night was coming on, and finally I said: “If I could git them cussed mules out of my way, I might accomplish somethin’.”
So we unhitched ’em from the wagon, but they was stuck too, and I had to wade out beside ’em and lift ’em out of the mud one by one and tote ’em to the bank. A mule is a helpless critter. But then, with them out of the way, I laid hold of the tongue and hauled the wagon out of the creek in short order. Them Kansas people sure did look surprized, I dunno why.
Time we’d scraped the mud offa the wagon and us, and hitched up the mules again, it was night, and so it was long after dark when we come up to the camp the rest of the train had made in the place I told ‘em. Old Man Richardson come up to me looking worried, and he says: “Mister Elkins, some of the boys went into that there town in spite of what I told ‘em.”
“Don’t worry,” I says. “I’ll go git ‘em.”
I clumb on Cap’n Kidd without stopping to eat supper, and rode over to War Smoke, and tied my hoss outside the only saloon they was there. It was a small town, and awful hard looking. As I went into the saloon I seen the four Richardson boys, and they was surrounded by a gang of cut-throats and outlaws. They was a Mexican there, too, a tall, slim cuss, with a thin black mustash, and gilt braid onto his jacket.
“So you theenk you settle in Bowie Knife Canyon, eh?” he says, and one of the boys said: “Well, that’s what we was aimin’ to do.”
“I theenk not,” he said, grinning like a cougar, and I seen his hands steal to the ivory-handled guns at his hips. “You never heard of Senor Gonzeles Zamora? No? Well, he is a beeg hombre in thees country, and he has use for thees canyon in hees business.”
“Start the fireworks whenever yo’re ready, Gomez,” muttered a white desperado. “We’re backin’ yore play.”
The Richardson boys didn’t know what the deal was about, but they seen they was up agen real trouble, and they turnt pale and looked around like trapped critters, seeing nothing but hostile faces and hands gripping guns.
“Who tell you you could settle thees canyon?” ast Gomez. “Who breeng you here? Somebody from Kansas? Yes? No?”
“No,” I said, shouldering my way through the crowd. “My folks come from Texas. My granddaddy was at San Jacinto. You remember that?”
His hands fell away from his guns and his brown hide turnt ashy. The rest of them renegades give back, muttering: “Look out, boys! It’s Breckinridge Elkins!”
They all suddenly found they had business at the bar, or playing cards, or something, and Gomez found hisself standing alone. He licked his lips and looked sick, but he tried to keep up his bluff.
“You maybe no like what I say about Senor Zamora?” says he. “But ees truth. If I tell him gringoes come to Bowie Knife Canyon, he get very mad!”
“Well, suppose you go tell him now,” I said, and so as to give him a good start, I picked him up and throwed him through the nearest winder.
He picked hisself up and staggered away, streaming blood and Mex profanity, and them in the saloon maintained a kind of pallid silence. I hitched my guns forard, and said to the escaped convict which was tending bar, I says: “You don’t want me to pay for that winder, do you?”
“Oh, no!” says he, polishing away with his rag at a spittoon he must of thought was a beer mug. “Oh, no, no, no, no! We needed that winder busted fer the ventilation!”
“Then everybody’s satisfied,” I suggested, and all the hoss-thieves and stagecoach bandits in the saloon give me a hearty agreement.
“That’s fine,” I says. “Peace is what I aim to have, if I have to lick every — in the joint to git it. You boys git back to the camp.”
They was glad to do so, but I lingered at the bar, and bought a drink for a train-robber I’d knowed at Chawed Ear onst, and I said: “Jest who is this cussed Zamora that Mex was spielin’ about?”
“I dunno,” says he. “I never heard of him before.”
“I wouldn’t say you was lyin’,” I said tolerantly. “Yo’re jest sufferin’ from loss of memory. Frequently cases like that is cured and their memory restored by a severe shock or jolt like a lick onto the head. Now then, if I was to take my six-shooter butt and drive yore head through that whiskey barrel with it, I bet it’d restore yore memory right sudden.”
“Hold on!” says he in a hurry. “I jest remembered that Zamora is the boss of a gang of Mexicans which claims Bowie Knife Canyon. He deals in hosses.”
“You mean he steals hosses,” I says, and he says: “I ain’t argyin’. Anyway, the canyon is very convenient for his business, and if you dump them immigrants in his front yard, he’ll be very much put out.”
“He sure will,” I agreed. “As quick as I can git my hands onto him.”
I finished my drink and strode to the door and turnt suddenly with a gun in each hand. The nine or ten fellers which had drawed their guns aiming to shoot me in the back as I went through the door, they dropped their weppins and throwed up their hands and yelled: “Don’t shoot!” So I jest shot the lights out, and then went out and got onto Cap’n Kidd whilst them idjits was hollering and falling over each other in the dark, and rode out of War Smoke, casually shattering a few winder lights along the street as I went.
When I got back to camp the boys had already got there, and the whole wagon train was holding their weppins and scairt most to death.
“I’m mighty relieved to see you back safe, Mister Elkins,” says Old Man Richardson. “We heard the shootin’ and was afeared them bullies had kilt you. Le’s hitch up and pull out right now!”
Them tenderfoots is beyond my comprehension. They’d of all pulled out in the dark if I’d let ‘em, and I believe most of ’em stayed awake all night, expecting to be butchered in their sleep. I didn’t say nothing to them about Zamora. The boys hadn’t understood what Gomez was talking about, and they warn’t no use getting ’em worse scairt than what they generally was.
Well, we pulled out before daylight, because I aimed to rech the canyon without another stop. We kept rolling and got there purty late that night. It warn’t really no canyon at all, but a whopping big valley, well timbered, and mighty good water and grass. It was a perfect place for a settlement, as I p’inted out, but tenderfoots is powerful pecooliar. I happened to pick our camp site that night on the spot where the Apaches wiped out a mule-train of Mexicans six years before, and it was too dark to see the bones scattered around till next morning. Old Man Richardson was using what he thought was a round rock for a piller, and when he woke up the next morning and found he’d been sleeping with his head onto a human skull he like to throwed a fit.
And when I wanted to stop for the noonday meal in that there grove where the settlers hanged them seven cattle-rustlers three years before, them folks got the willies when they seen some of the ropes still sticking onto the limbs, and wouldn’t on no account eat their dinner there. You got no idee what pecooliar folks them immigrants is till you’ve saw some.
Well, we stopped a few miles further on, in another grove in the midst of a wide rolling country with plenty of trees and
tall grass, and I didn’t tell ’em that was where them outlaws murdered the three Grissom boys in their sleep. Old Man Richardson said it looked like as good a place as any to locate the settlement. But I told him we was going to look over the whole derned valley before we chosed a spot. He kind of wilted and said at least for God’s sake let ’em rest a few days.
I never seen folks which tired out so easy, but I said all right, and we camped there that night. I hadn’t saw no signs of Zamora’s gang since we come into the valley, and thought likely they was all off stealing hosses somewhere. Not that it made any difference.
Early next morning Ned and Joe, the old man’s boys, they wanted to look for deer, and I told ’em not to go more’n a mile from camp, and be keerful, and they said they would, and sot out to the south.
I went back of the camp a mile or so to the creek where Jim Dornley ambushed Tom Harrigan four years before, and taken me a swim. I stayed longer’n I intended to, it was sech a relief to get away from them helpless tenderfoots for a while, and when I rode back into camp, I seen Ned approaching with a stranger — a young white man, which carried hisself with a air of great importance.
“Hey, pap!” hollered young Ned as they dismounted. “Where’s Mister Elkins? This feller says we can’t stay in Bowie Knife Canyon!”
“Who’re you?” I demanded, emerging from behind a wagon, and the stranger’s eyes bugged out as he seen me.
“My name’s George Warren,” says he. “A wagon train of us just came into the valley from the east yesterday. We’re from Illinois.”
“And by what right does you order people outa this canyon?” I ast.
“We got the fightin’est man in the world guidin’ us,” says he. “I thought he was the biggest man in the world till I seen you. But he ain’t to be fooled with. When he heard they was another train in the valley, he sent me to tell you to git. You better, too, if you got any sense!”
“We don’t want no trouble!” quavered Old Man Richardson.
“You got a nerve!” I snorted, and I pulled George Warren’s hat down so the brim come off and hung around his neck like a collar, and turnt him around and lifted him off the ground with a boot in the pants, and then throwed him bodily onto his hoss. “Go back and tell yore champeen that Bowie Knife Canyon belongs to us!” I roared, slinging a few bullets around his hoss’ feet. “And we gives him one hour to hitch up and clear out!”
“I’ll git even for this!” wept George Warren, as he streaked it for his home range. “You’ll be sorry, you big polecat! Jest wait’ll I tell Mister—” I couldn’t catch what else he said.
“Now I bet he’s mad,” says Old Man Richardson. “We better go. After all—”
“Shet up!” I roared. “This here valley’s our’n, and I intends to defend our rights to the last drop of yore blood! Hitch them mules and swing the wagons in a circle! Pile yore saddles and plunder betwixt the wheels. I got a idee you all fights better behind breastworks. Did you see their camp, Ned?”
“Naw,” says he, “but George Warren said it lies about three miles east of our’n. Me and Joe got separated and I was swingin’ east around the south end of that ridge over there, when I met this George Warren. He said he was out lookin’ for a hoss before sun-up and seen our camp and went back and told their guide, and he sent him over to tell us to git out.”
“I’m worried about Joe,” said Old Man Richardson. “He ain’t come back.”
“I’ll go look for him,” I said. “I’ll also scout their camp, and if the odds ain’t more’n ten to one, we don’t wait for ’em to attack. We goes over and wipes ’em out pronto. Then we hangs their fool sculps to our wagon bows as a warnin’ to other sech scoundrels.”
Old Man Richardson turnt pale and his knees knocked together, but I told him sternly to get to work swinging them wagons, and clumb onto Cap’n Kidd and lit out.
Reason I hadn’t saw the smoke of the Illinois camp was on account of a thick-timbered ridge which lay east of our camp. I swung around the south end of that ridge and headed east, and I’d gone maybe a mile and a half when I seen a man riding toward me.
When he seen me he come lickety-split, and I could see the sun shining on his Winchester barrel. I cocked my .45-90 and rode toward him and we met in the middle of a open flat. And suddenly we both lowered our weppins and pulled up, breast to breast, glaring at each other.
“Breckinridge Elkins!” says he.
“Cousin Bearfield Buckner!” says I. “Air you the man which sent that unlicked cub of a George Warren to bring me a defiance?”
“Who else?” he snarled. He always had a awful temper.
“Well,” I says, “this here is our valley. You all got to move on.”
“What you mean, move on?” he yelled. “I brung them pore critters all the way from Dodge City, Kansas, where I encountered ’em bein’ tormented by some wuthless buffalo hunters which is no longer in the land of the livin’. I’ve led ’em through fire, flood, hostile Injuns and white renegades. I promised to lead ’em into a land of milk and honey, and I been firm with ‘em, even when they weakened theirselves. Even when they begged on bended knees to be allowed to go back to Illinois, I wouldn’t hear of it, because, as I told ‘em, I knowed what was best for ‘em. I had this canyon in mind all the time. And now you tells me to move on!”
Cousin Bearfield rolled an eye and spit on his hand. I jest waited.
“What sort of a reply does you make to my request to go on and leave us in peace?” he goes on. “George Warren come back to camp wearin’ his hat brim around his neck and standin’ up in the stirrups because he was too sore to set in the saddle. So I set ’em fortifyin’ the camp whilst I went forth to reconnoiter. That word I sent you, I now repeats in person. Yo’re my blood-kin, but principles comes first!”
“Me, too,” I said. “A Nevada Elkins’ principles is as loftey as a Texas Buckner’s any day. I whupped you a year ago in Cougar Paw—”
“That’s a cussed lie!” gnashed he. “You taken a base advantage and lammed me with a oak log when I warn’t expectin’ it!”
“Be that as it may,” says I, “ — ignorin’ the fack that you had jest beaned me with a rock the size of a water-bucket — the only way to settle this dispute is to fight it out like gents. But we got to determine what weppins to use. The matter’s too deep for fists.”
“I’d prefer butcher knives in a dark room,” says he, “only they ain’t no room. If we jest had a couple of sawed-off shotguns, or good double-bitted axes — I tell you, Breck, le’s tie our left hands together and work on each other with our bowies.”
“Naw,” I says, “I got a better idee. We’ll back our hosses together, and then ride for the oppersite sides of the flat. When we git there we’ll wheel and charge back, shootin’ at each other with our Winchesters. Time they’re empty we’ll be clost enough to use our pistols, and when we’ve emptied them we’ll be clost enough to finish the fight with our bowies.”
“Good idee!” agreed Bearfield. “You always was a brainy, cultured sort of a lobo, if you wasn’t so damn stubborn. Now, me, I’m reasonable. When I’m wrong, I admit it.”
“You ain’t never admitted it so far,” says I.
“I ain’t never been wrong yet!” he roared. “And I’ll kyarve the gizzard of the buzzard which says I am! Come on! Le’s git goin’.”
So we started to gallop to the oppersite sides of the flat when I heard a voice hollering: “Mister Elkins! Mister Elkins!”
“Hold on!” I says. “That’s Joe Richardson.”
Next minute Joe come tearing out of the bresh from the south on a mustang I hadn’t never seen before, with a Mexican saddle and bridle on. He didn’t have no hat nor shirt, and his back was criss-crossed with bloody streaks. He likewise had a cut in his sculp which dribbled blood down his face.
“Mexicans!” he panted. “I got separated from Ned and rode further’n I should ought to had. About five miles down the canyon I run into a big gang of Mexicans — about thirty of ‘em. O
ne was that feller Gomez. Their leader was a big feller they called Zamora.
“They grabbed me and taken my hoss, and whupped me with their quirts. Zamora said they was goin’ to wipe out every white man in the canyon. He said his scouts had brung him news of our camp, and another’n east of our’n, and he aimed to destroy both of ’em at one sweep. Then they all got onto their hosses and headed north, except one man which I believe they left there to kill me before he follered ‘em. He hit me with his six-shooter and knocked me down, and then put up his gun and started to cut my throat with his knife. But I wasn’t unconscious like he thought, and I grabbed his gun and knocked himdown with it, and jumped on his hoss and lit out. As I made for camp I heard you and this gent talkin’ loud to each other, and headed this way.”
“Which camp was they goin’ for first?” I demanded.
“I dunno,” he said. “They talked mostly in Spanish I can’t understand.”
“The duel’ll have to wait,” I says. “I’m headin’ for our camp.”
“And me for mine,” says Bearfield. “Lissen: le’s decide it this way: one that scuppers the most Greasers wins and t’other’n takes his crowd and pulls out!”
“Bueno!” I says, and headed for camp.
The trees was dense. Them bandits could of passed either to the west or the east of us without us seeing ‘em. I quickly left Joe, and about a quarter of a mile further on I heard a sudden burst of firing and screaming, and then silence. A little bit later I bust out of the trees into sight of the camp, and I cussed earnestly. Instead of being drawed up in a circle, with the men shooting from between the wheels and holding them bandits off like I expected, them derned wagons was strung out like they was heading back north. The hosses was cut loose from some of ‘em, and mules was laying acrost the poles of the others, shot full of lead. Women was screaming and kids was squalling, and I seen young Jack Richardson laying face down in the ashes of the campfire with his head in a puddle of blood.
Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four) Page 226