Ranger Justice

by James J. Griffin

“Jim,” Lewis exclaimed, “I figured for sure you’d be stayin’ overnight at the doc’s. You’re lookin’ a little the worse for wear there pardner.”

  “Takes more’n a few punches to keep me down,” Jim managed a wry smile, which was more of a grimace. “And the doc wouldn’t let me visit with Steve for more’n a couple of minutes. Rick, I need your help for a short while. Can you get someone to watch the prisoner?”

  “Sure,” the deputy readily agreed, as he nodded at the oldster. “Haven’t introduced you to Don Flanagan, the hombre I mentioned acts as our jailer when need be. Don, this is Lieutenant Jim Blawcyzk of the Texas Rangers.”

  “Glad to meet’cha, Ranger,” Flanagan mumbled through the huge chaw of tobacco lodged firmly in his cheek. He grinned, revealing jagged yellow teeth as he jumped Lewis’ few remaining checkers. “I win again Rick,” he triumphantly announced.

  “Reckon I’ll be glad to get outta here for awhile,” Lewis sighed as he lifted his Lightning from the rifle rack, “I’m tired of gettin’ the pants beat offa me by this old codger.”

  Jim told the jailer, “Don, we’ll be back quick as we can. You be careful. Any trouble, we’ll come runnin’.”

  “I can handle any trouble,” Flanagan assured him, patting an ancient shotgun resting against the wall. “This here scattergun is filled with rock salt and horseshoe nails. It’ll cut anyone down to size.”

  “Not to mention ribbons,” Jim chuckled. “I reckon you’ll be just fine. Rick, let’s get goin’. I want to swing by the livery and see if Jeff can join us too.”

  “Right behind you,” the deputy replied as Jim pushed open the office door.

  A few moments later Jim, along with Lewis and Jeff Murphy, was standing in the main room of the Rafter Q’s Sunday house. As were most of these structures, used by ranch families only when they came into town from their outlying spreads for the weekend or an overnight stay, the house was small, consisting of one main room downstairs with a leanto for cooking attached to the back, and an open sleeping loft above. It was sparsely furnished, with a horsehair sofa and a few chairs, a new Navajo rug on the floor, along with a writing table and small chest in the living area, blankets scattered on the floor of the loft serving as beds. The building stood on a short side street at the edge of town, isolated from most of its neighbors. Seeing its location, Jim could now understand why any shots inside the house would be muffled to anyone on the street.

  “OK Ranger, now that we’re here, can you tell us what you’re up to?” Murphy demanded.

  “Glad to. I didn’t want to say anythin’ until I could be sure no one would overhear us,” Jim replied. “Doc Sweeney told me the bullets that killed Rebecca Jeffers went clean through her. That means if she was killed in this house, I should be able to find those slugs, unless somebody beat me to ‘em. Looks like someone cleaned this place pretty good after the shootin’. That rug’s brand new, so I reckon it replaced a bloodstained one. Helpin’ me figure out just what happened here is where you two come in.”

  “We’ll be glad to help any way we can,” Lewis replied, “Where do we start?”

  “Rick, this is important. I need you to tell me as closely as possible where Steve and Mrs. Jeffers were lyin’ when you found ‘em.”

  The deputy thought for a moment before replying.

  “Let’s see, the Ranger was lyin’ right about here.” He took several paces to the right. “And Rebecca was a little more than halfway across the room, right about there.”

  “Good,” Jim replied. “Now Jeff, you’re gonna be Rebecca Jeffers, or I guess to be more precise Rebecca Jeffers’ body. Would you lie down where Rick tells you to? And Rick, I know you won’t remember exactly, but once Jeff lies down would you position him as you recall you found Mrs. Jeffers? Face up or down; body, arms and legs placed as well as you can recollect?”

  “This seems crazy, but I reckon you know what you’re doin’ Ranger,” Murphy muttered as he settled to the floor.

  “Trust me, I do,” Jim assured him. “Rick.”

  “Sure, Jim,” the deputy agreed. “Jeff, she was face-down, her head kinda pointed toward that corner. Her right arm was under her head, her left one lyin’ at her side.” He hunkered alongside the prone blacksmith, maneuvering him into place. “There, that’s about right.”

  “Fine,” Jim said, “Now, Rick, you’re gonna be Steve Masters. I need you to lie down exactly like Steve was when you found him.”

  “Whatever you say,” Lewis shrugged, as he stretched out on his belly, shifted a bit, then said, “Close as I can recollect this should be about right.”

  “That’s good,” Jim answered, “Now don’t move until I say so.”

  For several minutes, Jim studied the positions of the two men, both relative to each other and to the room with its furnishings. He hunkered alongside them, carefully observing angles and considering and rejecting various possibilities. Finally he said, “I’m about done. You can get up now.” As Lewis and Murphy came to their feet, brushing themselves off, Jim said, “Rick, I’ve got two more questions for you.”

  “What’re they?”

  “About how tall a woman was Rebecca Jeffers? And was she slim or more on the stocky side?”

  Lewis rubbed his jaw thoughtfully before replying, “She wasn’t all that tall, truth to tell. Probably about five foot four or five. Nice and slim, too. Good figure.”

  “Fine.” Again Jim glanced around the room before he said, “Rick, I need you to stand right about here.” He took the deputy’s shoulder and maneuvered him to a spot little more than halfway to the back wall. “Now hunker down a little, so you’d be about Mrs. Jeffers’ height.”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want,” Lewis agreed, bending his knees and hunching his back. “This about right?”

  “Just about. And don’t worry, I’m not gonna plug you. There’s an empty chamber under the hammer,” Jim replied, as he pulled out his Colt and leveled it at the deputy’s stomach. “OK Rick, that’ll do,” he said with satisfaction a minute later, as his gaze settled on the back wall.

  “Mind tellin’ us what that was all about, Ranger?” Murphy asked, as Jim walked across the room and lifted his knife from its sheath.

  “Sure,” Jim agreed, “I’m tryin’ to calculate just where Mrs. Jeffers was stan-din’ when she got shot. By figurin’ that out, with luck I’ll be able to find at least one of the bullets that killed her.” He dropped to his knees, studying the wall’s rough-hewn planks.

  “Find anythin’?” Lewis questioned, as Jim ran a hand over the wall.

  “I think so,” Jim replied, as he looked closely at an almost unnoticeable splintering at the edge of a board, then probed the seam between that board and the next with his finger. “Think I’ve got a slug buried in here.” He deftly slipped the point of his Bowie into the crack, twisted, and flipped out a battered chunk of lead. He cradled the bullet in the palm of his hand as he observed, “This is a 41 caliber slug, not a .45. Probably from a Derringer. Which means Rebecca Jeffers was killed in this room, but the bullets that killed her didn’t come from Steve Masters’ sixgun.”

  “Are you certain?” Jeff Murphy questioned.

  “As certain as I can be by eyeballin’ this slug,” Jim replied, “But to be positive, I’ll have Doc Sweeney weigh this one and one of my .45s. That’ll tell me for sure.”

  “That still doesn’t clear Masters,” Jeff Murphy protested, “He might’ve had another gun.”

  “Mebbe,” Jim agreed, “but then why wasn’t it found on him, and why did his Colt have two empty chambers?”

  “Which means someone went to a lot of trouble to try’n frame your par-dner,” Rick noted.

  “You learn quick, deputy,” Jim grinned. “Now let’s get over to the doc’s and have him weigh those slugs. I want to look around this place some more, but that can wait.”

  As they walked toward the doctor
’s office in the gathering dusk, Lewis asked, “Jim, I’ve never seen anythin’ like that back there at the house. Where’d you learn all that, figurin’ angles and such?”

  “I’ve ridden quite a bit with a Ranger sergeant name of Jim Huggins,” Jim explained. “He’s a pretty clever hombre, and knows a lot of that scientific stuff. Jim and another Ranger, Karl Rehn, have taught me quite a bit about how bullets act when they hit a person. For example, if this here slug had hit any bones, instead of passin’ through the body cleanly it would have fragmented inside it, and I never would’ve found it. By the way, I don’t want either of you talkin’ about what we found here tonight. Let whoever really killed Mrs. Jeffers keep thinkin’ Steve’s gonna take the fall for him.”

  “You’ve got our word on it, Ranger,” Murphy replied for both men.

  “Knew I could count on you,” Jim answered. They spent the rest of the short walk to the doctor’s in silence, each absorbed in his own thoughts.

  As they entered the office, Doctor Sweeney greeted them gruffly. “Lieutenant, I believe I ordered you to rest for at least twenty-four hours.”

  “You did,” Jim grinned, “And I promise I will, as soon as you do me one favor. But first, any change in Steve or John?”

  “If anything, they’re both slightly worse,” Sweeney answered, “But that’s to be expected. Now before your condition also gets worse, you said you needed a favor.”

  “That’s right, doc. And I’ll need your word that you won’t talk to anyone about it.”

  “I suppose I could invoke doctor-patient confidentiality,” Sweeney replied, “depending.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jim assured him, “I just need you to weigh this for me. And I’ll need some pliers if you have them handy.” He pulled the slug out of his pocket.

  “Of course, Lieutenant,” Sweeney readily agreed. “My scales are in the back room, and I have a pair of pliers back there somewhere. Follow me.”

  Sweeney rummaged through several drawers before coming up with the pliers and handing them to Jim. As the doctor placed the .41 on one tray of his balance scale, Jim removed a shell from his cartridge belt and used the pliers to pull out the lead slug. He placed that bullet on the scale’s other tray, which immediately dropped lower than the one holding the .41 slug he’d removed from the Sunday house wall.

  “There’s your proof,” Jim explained, “That slug on the left is one of the two that killed Rebecca Jeffers, and it weighs less than a .45.”

  “So it didn’t come from that young Ranger’s gun,” Murphy muttered.

  “Exactly,” Jim answered. As he did several pistol shots, followed by the two heavy booms of a double-barreled shotgun’s blasts, echoed through the room.

  “What in blazes?” Lewis shouted, “That came from the jail. We’d better get down there.” The deputy broke into a run as he realized he was yelling at Jim’s back. The Ranger was already out the door and bounding down the porch stairs.

  A crowd was already gathering around the front of the sheriff’s office when the lawmen raced up. As Jim and Rick pushed their way through the curious bystanders, a woman screamed and fainted when she spotted the two riddled bodies lying at the front door of the office. Don Flanagan was leaning against the door frame for support, a bloody streak along the left side of his shirt. His empty shotgun lay at his feet as he brandished a fully-loaded Winchester.

  “Don, what in blazes happened?” Lewis demanded.

  The jailer nodded at the two sprawled bodies. “One of these hombres must’ve slipped Martin a pistol through the cell window. Then they busted through the front door, guns a-blazin’. When they did, Martin plugged me from behind. Lucky for me he must’ve still been under the influence of that laudanum Doc Sweeney gave him, ‘cause he missed my back and just grazed me. Anyway, I nailed both of these jaspers, then turned and let Martin have it with the second barrel before he could try for me again.”

  “You mean Martin’s dead too?” Jim asked.

  Flanagan gave him a withering look. “Ranger, when an hombre is hit with a full load of rock salt and horseshoe nails at close range, there ain’t much left of him. I’d say Martin’s just about as dead as he’s ever gonna be.”

  “All right,” Jim sighed, “I wanted to question him, but there’s nothin’ to be done about that now.” He gestured at the two dead men. “Rick, I recognize these two as a couple of the hombres who roughed me up at the Rafter Q. You know their names?”

  “I sure do,” Lewis replied, “Luis Rivera and John Poole. They’ve worked for Jeffers’ outfit for quite a spell.”

  “Guess they’re done workin’ for him,” Flanagan dryly chuckled.

  “Yeah,” Jim agreed. “Rick, can you get someone to haul these bodies out to the Rafter Q for me? I don’t figure we’ll need a coroner’s inquiry.”

  “I don’t believe we will,” Doctor Sweeney concurred as he hurried up, black satchel in hand, and quickly examined the riddled remains of the Rafter Q riders. “The cause of death is pretty clear-cut. My services aren’t needed here.”

  As Sweeney finished his examination, Lewis questioned Blawcyzk.

  “Jim, you’re not gonna arrest Mason Jeffers for tryin’ to break his foreman outta jail?”

  “It’d be no use,” Jim explained, “There’s nothin’ to tie Jeffers into this. He’d just claim a couple of Martin’s pals got liquored up and decided on their own to try and bust him outta jail. With no evidence, I can’t even arrest Jeffers, let alone have a chance of a judge holdin’ him for trial. No, we’ll just send the bodies back to the Rafter Q. Mebbe that’ll rile Jeffers up enough to make a mistake.”

  “I’ll take care of these hombres, Ranger,” Jeff Murphy said as he turned to a couple of the bystanders. “Pat, Duffy, give me a hand.”

  “I’ll go along with you, Jeff,” Flanagan offered.

  “You’d best get yourself to the doc’s and get that bullet slash taken care of,” Lewis answered.

  “Mebbe I’d better,” Flanagan conceded as he sagged slightly.

  “All right folks, go on home. The show’s over,” Lewis ordered. As the crowd began to disperse, he asked Blawcyzk, “What’re you gonna do now, Jim?”

  The Ranger sighed wearily as he replied, “I’m gonna follow the doc’s orders, and get that good night’s sleep I haven’t had since I hit town. Tomorrow I’ll do some more pokin’ around. Can you handle things for the night?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Lewis answered, looking with concern at the haggard Ranger. “You’d best get that rest. I’ll see you in the mornin’.”

  “Thanks,” Jim gratefully replied, “G’night, Rick.”

  “G’night,” Lewis returned, as he stooped to help Jeff Murphy pick up John Poole’s body.

  Jim barely remembered climbing the stairs to his hotel room, where he collapsed across his bed, too worn-out to even remove his gunbelt, undress, and say his evening prayers. He was asleep the moment his body hit the mattress.

  CHAPTER 6

  Despite his exhaustion and injuries, as usual Jim was awake with the sun the next morning. He pushed himself off the thin mattress, peeled off his shirt, and stumbled over to the washstand. Pouring water from the chipped ceramic pitcher into the basin, he gave himself a rudimentary bathing, running the rough washcloth over his face and chest, ducking his head into the basin to rinse the dust out of his hair. That completed, he toweled off, put on his spare shirt, and headed for the livery stable, where Sam greeted him with joyous whinnies loud enough to reverberate through the barn.

  “Easy bud, I’m kinda hurtin’,” Jim chided the big gelding, as Sam buried his muzzle in the Ranger’s stomach in greeting, then nuzzled at his hip pocket for a peppermint. “You want to stretch your legs some today?” Jim asked as he pulled a candy from his jeans and gave it to the horse. “You’re probably gettin’ tired of just hangin’ around growin’ fat and lazy.” As the paint snorted
agreement, Jeff Murphy emerged from his living quarters, stretching and yawning.

  “Howdy Ranger,” he sleepily greeted Blawcyzk, “How you feelin’? Better’n you look, I hope.”

  “Thanks a lot, Jeff,” Jim laughed. “And I’m not feelin’ all that bad, considering I’ve got a couple chores to take care of in town this mornin’, then I figure I’ll head out to Gypsum Creek Canyon. I want to look around that homestead of Pablo Cruz’s. Can you tell me how to find the place?”

  “Sure,” Murphy answered. “You head south out of town for about four miles. You’ll see a big red ledge where the trail splits. Take the left fork, go two miles and you’ll see a sign for the Cross CZ nailed to a post with an arrow pointin’ to the right. Follow that straight into the mouth of the canyon. What’s left of Cruz’s little shack is right there. You won’t have any trouble findin’ it.”

  “Appreciate it,” Jim replied, “I’ve also gotta stop by the bank. What time’s it open? Nine o’clock like most of ‘em?”

  “Nope. John Collins always liked to open early for the ranchers and merchants. The bank still opens its doors at eight.”

  “That’ll help. I’ll be there when it opens. I’d appreciate it if you could have Sam ready for me right after that.”

  “He’ll be fed and watered,” Murphy promised, “That is, if he manages to behave himself,” he added, as Sam pinned his ears and lunged at the blacksmith’s stomach.

  “You heard the man,” Jim told his paint, “You wanna eat, horse, you’d best be good. I’ll be back for you in a bit.”

  Jim stopped by the doctor’s office before eating a hearty breakfast at the Bon Ton café. Rick Lewis walked in just as the Ranger was downing the last of his hotcakes and finishing his third cup of black coffee.

  “I thought you’d be sleepin’ in this mornin’, Jim,” the deputy greeted him, taking a seat at Blawcyzk’s table.

  “Too much to get done,” Jim replied, “I stopped in to check on Steve and John, and now I’ve gotta head over to the bank. Then I’m gonna ride out to Gypsum Creek Canyon and look around where that homesteader was shot.”