Ranch War

by J. T. Edson

  Satisfied that their horses wanted for nothing, Calamity and the Kid left the stable. They had placed their saddles on the inverted V-shaped wooden “burro” supplied for that purpose, but took their Winchesters with them. Going across to the big house, they entered to find its center front room deserted. After a moment, Goff appeared through the door leading into the telegraph office.

  “You’ll have to wait supper a mite,” the old-timer remarked. “There was a message started coming through just after I’d gotten into the kitchen. I missed the call sign, but reckoned I’d best take it down case it was for me. What I got was ‘White stallion and red mare on their way to your ranch.’ There didn’t seem to be no signature.”

  “Any notion where it’d come from and where it was going?” asked the Kid.

  “It’d come up from Mulrooney, but might’ve been passed from beyond that. If it warn’t for here, which I doubt seeing’s this ain’t ranching country, it could be for any of the way stations between here ’n’ Hollick City, or out beyond that. We get messages telling folks to come ’n’ collect something, or something’s coming, going through all the time.”

  “Sure,” agreed the Kid. “Only it could be about us. I don’t know if that Mexican recognized me. But if he did, he’d likely recall that I ride a white stallion.”

  “Only we don’t have a red mare,” Calamity pointed out.

  “I called ’n’ asked Mulrooney where that message’d been sent,” Goff put in. “It was for the Sappa ’n’ Beaver Creek way station.”

  “What’s the fellers who run it like?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Kid. My mammy raised me proper that if I couldn’t say nothing nice about folks, not to talk about ’em. You got another question?”

  “Not right now,” the Kid admitted, for the other’s reticence had told him all he needed to know.

  “I’ll go finish supper, then,” Goff decided and ambled away.

  “What do you reckon, Lon?” Calamity inquired as the old-timer went through a door leading to the rear of the building.

  “There’s two ways of looking at it,” the Kid replied gravely. “Either it was to a rancher telling him two hosses he’s ordered’re coming. Or somebody from The Outfit’s passing word to Otón ’n’ Job. If it’s the first, it’s harmless. But if it’s the second, they know we’re after them. Or will when they hit that way station.”

  “Yeah,” Calamity breathed.

  “How well do you know Deke?”

  “Well enough to trust him.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Anyways, if it’d been for him to pass on, he’d not’ve mentioned it.”

  “What do we do about it?” asked Calamity.

  “Can’t do a thing today,” the Kid pointed out. “They won’t get the message until so late tonight, or early tomorrow, that they’d not be able to get back here afore day-break. So we’ll have us some supper, then grab some sleep.”

  “Is that all we’ll do tonight?” the girl inquired innocently.

  “Can’t think of anything else,” answered the Kid. “Except we’ll ride real careful from now on.”

  “Know something?” Calamity sniffed. “I’m beginning to think Mark had a mishap and told me the truth about you.”

  She turned and walked over to sit at one of the tables without elaborating on which aspect of Mark Counter’s information about the Kid she had meant. Joining her, the dark young Texan settled on a chair and they waited for their supper in silence.

  “Dang it!” Deke announced as he served their meal. “I just thought. The boys done took all the bedding into Mulrooney to get it washed, ’cepting for one bed’s, seeing’s there warn’t no stage due tonight.”

  “I can bunk down in the barn,” offered the Kid.

  “Or we could ‘bundle,’ Lon,” Calamity suggested, eyeing him in a challenging manner. “There’s no harm in it.”

  “No harm at all,” agreed Deke, “when it’s done proper.”

  “Bundling” had come into being during the early days of the country’s colonization. The settlers soon discovered that the winter nights were long and bitterly cold. So they had been forced to revise their conventions for courting couples. When a young man had traveled many miles to visit his sweetheart, they wanted privacy. Sitting out on the porch did not offer an answer in winter. Nor could the thrifty settlers contemplate the expense of heating and illuminating a separate room for the couple’s use. So they had been allowed to “bundle,” share a bed, with a pine-board between them to preserve their virtue. That did away with the need for artificial heating, as they could lie side by side in the darkness and the bed’s clothes would keep them warm.

  When the migration to the West had begun, the travelers found “bundling” answered their needs and it grew into a frontier institution.

  “We’ll do that, then,” the Kid declared.

  After supper, Calamity went into the room indicated by Goff. As he always did, even when at the OD Connected ranch-house, the Kid paid a final visit to the barn and checked on his horses. Returning to the station building, he found that Goff had already retired. When he entered the bedroom, he saw Calamity had started to undress. Her boots and socks lay by the foot of the bed. Draped across the seat of a chair were her jacket, shirt and undershirt. Looking across her shoulder, she allowed her trousers to slide down.

  “What’re you doing?” the Kid asked, unbuckling his gunbelt and hanging it with Calamity’s on the hook behind the door.

  “My mammy allus taught me not to sleep in my street clothes,” the girl replied. “You wouldn’t want me to go against her word, now would you?”

  “That wouldn’t be right,” the Kid admitted, tossing his hat by her kepi on the small dressingtable. “’Fact my pappy allus used to tell me the same thing.”

  Blowing out the lamp, the Kid undressed and joined Calamity in the bed. For a time they lay on their backs, then he felt the girl’s inner hand feeling at the blanket between them.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Danged if we haven’t forgotten to get a pine-board to put between us,” Calamity replied and turned on to her side. “What’re we going to do about it?”

  With the first streak of dawn creeping in the eastern sky, Calamity watched the Kid don a breechclout of Comanche blue. Swinging her legs from the bed, she studied his lean, steel-wire muscled, hard frame. Giving a slight shiver, she grabbed her undershirt from the chair. Wriggling into it, she gathered in her shirt, drawers and trousers.

  “You’d best put a shirt on,” Calamity remarked as the Kid went to the door clad only to his waist, including his gunbelt.

  “I’m fixing to,” he replied and left the room.

  On his return, he wore a light gray shirt and multi-colored bandana. Calamity had already completed dressing and eyed him with interest.

  “Why the change?” she asked.

  “Happen that feller, Otón, sees me now,” the Kid explained, “he could figure he was wrong and I’m not the Ysabel Kid. That happens, he’ll be a mite easier to handle.”

  “What would you’ve done last night if there’d been anything between Mark ’n’ me?” Calamity said, picking up her carbine which she had brought, along with the Kid’s rifle, into the room the previous evening.

  “Slept in the barn,” the Kid answered. “Fact being, if there was anything between you ’n’ old Mark, I’d’ve had no other choice.”

  “You know something, Lon,” Calamity said seriously. “That’s just about the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.” Then a merry glint came to her eyes. “Hey though. I’ve showed you a gal can do one thing better’n any old food-dog or pack-mule.”

  Chapter 7 THAT WHITE STALLION AND RED MARE

  AT FIRST SIGHT, THE WAY STATION ON THE SOUTHERN bank of the river formed by the joining of the Beaver and Sappa Creeks looked much like the place in which Calamity and the Kid had spent the previous night. Going closer, they noticed that it lacked the tidiness and well-kept appearance of Deke Goff�
��s establishment. None of the staff, four in number according to Goff, were working outside the buildings. Smoke curled up from the chimney of the blacksmith’s forge between the main buildings, corrals and the river. The trail went through the station property and crossed a ford to continue its passage north.

  Once again Calamity led all the horses, complaining bitterly about it, despite the suggestion that she should having come from her. Searching the buildings with careful gaze, they felt that they had one advantage over their arrival at Goff’s place. Now they knew what kind of horses Otón and Job rode. Maybe the bay could go unnoticed among the other animals in the corrals, but Otón’s sabino ought to be distinctive enough to be picked out. An examination of the corrals did not produce a reddish-roan horse with a white belly. However, it could be concealed in the barn.

  “We’ll play it like that’s where they’ve got their hosses,” the Kid drawled. “Only we’ll make out we don’t suspect anything.”

  “They’d’ve had to stop off here if that hoss’ shoe we found back on the trail come from Job’s bay,” Calamity replied. “Looks like the forge’s been used today.”

  Because of their precautions, they reached the buildings without being fired on or challenged. Before they had left that morning, Goff had gone against his mother’s advice and told them enough about the crew of the way station to make them wary. So they had eaten a meal on the trail shortly after noon and pushed on another two hours to their present location. It was their intention to water the horses and ride on, unless Otón and Job were at the way station and disputed their passing.

  “Take all the hosses, Calam,” the Kid ordered, dropping from his saddle. “I want to nose around a mite.”

  “You’re starting to talk like a Comanche again,” the girl warned, but rode by the forge on her way to obey.

  The Kid did not intend to do his “nosing around” in the station’s main building or barn, which they had already passed. Dropping from his saddle, he removed the stallion’s bridle and bit. Hanging them across the low-horned, double-girthed Texas saddle, he allowed the white to follow the other horses. Then he turned his attention to the forge. It had been constructed on spartan lines. Apart from the roof’s supports, three sides were open. The forth had a wall, but merely as backing for the furnace’s chimney.

  Going through the open side nearest him, the Kid looked around. The forge showed the same lax, unkempt state as the rest of the station. Bits of iron, broken farm implements, a pick-handle that had lost its head and other oddments lay in a sizeable untidy heap, discarded or tossed aside to be used at some later date. A turning-hammer lay on the anvil, instead of among the other neglected-looking tools hanging on the wall. It was not a place to inspire confidence if one had a horse that needed shoeing. However, everything intimated that work had been done in it recently. Not in the last two or three hours, maybe, but certainly since sunup.

  Hearing footsteps approaching from the other buildings, the Kid turned slowly. He made no gesture that could be construed as hostile, but was ready to take instant, effective action should the sounds be produced by the two men from Mulrooney.

  Facing the new arrivals, the Kid saw that they were not Job and Otón. In fact three, not two, men came toward him. Thinking back to what Goff had told him, the Kid identified the trio.

  The big, gaunt, dirty-looking cuss at the right of the group, showing off brawny biceps in a sleeveless undershirt, with grimy pants and heavy boots, would be Tully, the blacksmith. In the center, medium height, stocky, wearing range clothes, a scar half-hidden by whiskers on his right cheek, was the wrangler, Masters. Gangling, mournful, living up to his name “Misery,” the last of them combined wrangling and cooking. He must have put more than one traveler off his food.

  That left the station agent to be accounted for. According to Deke Goff, Marty Spatz did as little manual work as he could manage. So the “duded-up, city-dressed bladder of rancid lard,” to quote the old-timer’s description, would most likely be in one of the buildings and watching what his hired help figured on doing.

  Despite the fact that none of them wore a gun, they aimed to do something, or the Kid missed his guess. Their whole attitude hinted at that. Walking under the roof of the forge, Tully and Masters confronted the Kid. Acting just a mite too casual, Misery sauntered by the building. Darting a glance after the lean man, the Kid saw that he was making toward where Calamity stood watching the horses drinking.

  “Want something?” Tully demanded.

  “One of the hosses there throwed a shoe,” the Kid replied, wondering if he should warn the girl. “I was fixing to get it tended to after they’d watered.”

  “Wasn’t fixing on tending to it yourself, was you?” Tully growled.

  “Why?” countered the Kid. “Ain’t there a blacksmith here?”

  Standing on slightly parted feet, the Kid looked very young and inexperienced. The changing out of his black shirt seemed to add to his youth. It was, however, an attitude that would have fooled nobody who knew him. Tully and Masters lacked that advantage. To them, the Kid was a bald-faced stripling who figured to be one real savage curly-wolf. He ought to be easy enough meat for what they had been sent to do. Not that they aimed to take chances. Having formed a different opinion at the sight of him passing from a distance, they had not worn their guns. That old Dragoon had seen some use and a bowie knife could be as deadly when slashed wildly by a scared kid, as it would be in the hands of a man skilled in its use.

  “Folks’s want the blacksmith most times stop at the house and ask for him,” Tully stated, exuding a menace that ought to hold the Texan’s attention while Masters sidled past him. “Them’s don’t ain’t up to any good, way I see it. There’s a heap of valuable gear here, most of it light enough to be toted off on a hoss.”

  “And that’s what you reckon I was fixing to do, huh?” the Kid inquired, with a mildness that would have screamed a warning to anybody aware of his ways.

  Even as he spoke, a faint clatter from one side and slightly behind him reached his ears. He knew that the sound had originated from inside the building and not down by the stream. Nor did he need to turn to guess at its cause. Confident that his actions were unsuspected, Masters was picking up a weapon. Thinking of what he had seen on his arrival, the Kid decided that it would most likely be the pick-handle. Nothing else in the heap of rubbish would be light or handy enough to serve the stocky man’s purpose. However, the Indian-dark young Texan showed no hint of being aware of what went on behind his back.

  “I ain’t saying you was, and I ain’t saying you wasn’t,” the blacksmith declared, devoting most of his attention to where Misery was drawing closer to the apparently unsuspecting girl. “Only, seeing’s how I wore blue in the War, I don’t cotton to Texas beef-heads coming here and making free with my property.”

  “Maybe I’ve come to pick up that white stallion and red mare that’re on the way from Mulrooney,” the Kid suggested and saw surprise twist at Tully’s face, to be replaced by anger and a little alarm.

  Gripping the thin end of the pick-handle in both hands, Masters crept toward the Kid. The wrangler could not hold down a hiss of surprise when he realized what the young Texan had said. Then he swung the handle around, like a baseball player wielding the bat, aiming to drive its splintered, swollen head between the shoulders of the gray shirt. Struck there with paralyzing force, the cowhand would be unable to resist the rest of what they had been ordered out to do.

  Satisfied that his companions could chill the male visitor’s milk without requiring help from him, Misery ignored what was going on in the forge. To him had been assigned the more enjoyable, and maybe safer, task of subduing the girl. Which ought to be easy enough, no matter how she dressed. He could see the bottom of the Colt’s holster, which did not greatly alarm him, but the bull-whip was concealed by her buckskin jacket. She still continued to stand with her back to him, gazing across the river and oblivious of her peril.

  Unfortunately for him, Cala
mity was nowhere near so unsuspecting as Misery fondly imagined. Having seen the trio making for the forge, she had expected trouble. When Misery left his companions, she figured that she had called the play correctly. She also decided that the Kid might need help and reckoned that she could supply it, after she had handed her mournful-featured assailant the shock of his life.

  Having turned her head to the front before any of the trio became aware that she had seen them, Calamity listened to Misery’s footsteps approaching. Undetected by the lanky man, she slipped the whip’s handle from its belt loop and loosened the lash ready for use.

  “If I’m doing you wrong, I’ll say ‘sorry’ most humble,” Calamity thought. “If I ain’t, you’re asking for all you’re going to get, you scrawny, miserable-looking son-of-a-bitch.”

  With that, Calamity started to pivot around in Misery’s direction. One glance told her that she had gauged the sound of his feet correctly. He was within range of her whip. Shock twisted at Misery’s face as he realized that he had been detected. Before he could decide on what action to take, Calamity made her move.

  On the off-chance that the men might not have evil intentions, Calamity had decided not to make the whip perform at its most lethal potential. Using her turning momentum to extend the long lash, she swung her right arm sideways, to the rear and snapped it forward. Almost as if it possessed a will of its own, the lash followed the movement. It curled through the air parallel to the ground in the direction of the lean man. Hard-plaited leather wrapped around Misery’s forward ankle while the foot was still in the air. Even through his boot, he felt the crushing pressure of its hold.

  Bracing her feet, Calamity gave a jerk on the whip. She caused Misery to hop on his other foot in an attempt to keep his balance. Darting toward him, she slid her hand to the upper end of the handle. As she came into range, before the man had recovered his equilibrium, she crashed the loaded butt of the handle against the side of his jaw. The force of the blow snapped his head sideways and he collapsed as if he had been pole-axed. Calamity threw a look at the forge, from which the sounds of strife had warned that her suspicions were correct. What she saw caused her to drop the whip, spin around and race toward the horses.