by Lou Bradshaw
So the thought of missing a good meal set mighty lofty on my list of things those folks would have to answer for. The way I had it set in my mind, if they slipped by on any one count, I had plenty of back up reasons to dog their trail.
I didn’t hardly expect them to be sitting around moaning about losing their ransom prize. And I really didn’t expect them to go and try to get it back, but they could head over to the MB and stir up some other kind of mischief. What I really expected, was for them to take off on the run and scatter. They knew the law and a few private citizens would be coming after ‘em.
What I didn’t expect was what I found when I reached the shelf where that cabin sat. The first thing I saw was that rickety old corral was busted up and poles were slung in all directions. The little jacal shed was knocked plumb over and busted up. Now that surely didn’t make much sense.
There were only three windows in that cabin. They’d likely never had any glass in ‘em… just shutters, which were ripped down or smashed clear to pieces. The door hung kinda catawampus by only one leather hinge. I kicked it aside and walked on in.
The inside was a total wreck. There wasn’t a single thing in there that wasn’t busted or ripped to shreds. There was only one bunk and it was in shattered pieces. The straw tick mattress was slashed and ripped up along with the webbing. What had been a table and a couple of homemade chairs would never be used again. Somebody had used an ax on a lot of it.
It had the smell of stale smoke, and then I found a place in the corner where a bunch of rags and straw had been piled up and a fire set. The wall was charred but no real damage done. Someone had been pretty much out of sorts. That was a lot of anger.
I went ahead and rummaged around in there trying to find something that would give me a clue to where they were heading. I knew it was a long shot, but sometimes people scribble notes to help them plan things out. I guess with that much anger none of them were doing any planning.
I did however; find what looked like a petticoat, or at least a part of one. I balled it up and took it out and gave Dog a sniff of it. He gave it a good smell and started moving all about the clearing. He had it, and he stopped right where she mounted up. I reckoned he could find her, if she was on the ground. Of course it wouldn’t be much help if she was on horseback, but if they holed up in a town where she’d be afoot, he could find her.
It didn’t take a master tracker to find the trail they left. They were heading east and up the creek. If my calculations were right, that creek would turn north and come down from the high country up in the Sangre de Cristos. Not being familiar with these mountains, I was just supposing. As it turned out, I was right, but then a few miles later I was wrong. The creek turned north, and then it swung around and headed east again.
They were going into high country, and that suited me fine. High country agreed with me. I seem to breathe a lot easier where the air ain’t cluttered up with a lot of people and their ways. I could breathe easier even if the air was so thin, I couldn’t get much of it. It was the same way with the desert, where the air was so hot and dry it burned your throat.
It was still better than being in a crowded town. Maybe if that crowded town was empty of its people, I wouldn’t have any trouble breathing. All I really knew, was when I got through with that bunch up ahead of me, I’d breathe better.
The creek was winding through one of those long, snaky valleys that twist and turn but have little room on either side. The mountains on both sides were crowding that valley and leading me higher with each step my horse took.
The sun was touching the flanks of the mountains to the west, and would be sliding down to the places where they overlap soon. It can get dark real sudden like in these deep valleys. I needed to find me a place to curl up for the night. Chances were, I wouldn’t be able to spot their fire, but I didn’t want to risk having mine out in the open. A man just can’t be too careful about some things. On a clear night a camp fire can be seen for a couple of miles or more. Of course you’d have to have a clear line of sight.
That’s when I saw it up ahead. I had just come around the lead end of a low bluff, and there, not a quarter mile ahead was the twinkle of a fire. It wasn’t a large fire, such as what a large group would make. It was a coffee and bacon kind of fire… one or two men. It was smoking and out in the open. Some pilgrim out here looking for shiny rocks, no doubt.
But again, I don’t take anything for granted. That’s how fellas wind up floating face down in one of those creeks without a canoe or a paddle. This wasn’t necessarily Injun country. But who’s to say that some Southern Cheyenne or Comanche or even one or two bronco Navajo might not happen along and find an easy scalp. A pilgrim should be as wary of whites out here as Injuns.
I eased on up toward that fire. The sun was setting and it was right behind me, so at best, whoever was at that fire would have a hard time seeing me. I could see him feeding sticks into the flame. There wasn’t the smell of coffee or anything else that a person might put on a fire. Could be this fella was planning on eating his saddle.
Taking my time, I wanted to come into the camp when it was dark and I could step into the circle of light with a fist full of rifle. I didn’t mean that pilgrim no harm, but I wasn’t about to let him have any advantage either.
As I got closer I could see him throwing more sticks on the fire. It was growing to an utterly unnecessary proportion. Of course those sticks would burn up quick. Dropping my reins, I signaled Dog to stay put, and I moved on up to the circle of light.
There sat little Andy’s playmate, Willis. He sure looked bedraggled. I never saw a more lost looking puppy. Sitting there tossing little sticks into the fire and watching them burn he looked like he didn’t have a friend in the world.
“You gonna put some meat on that fire, or you planning on eatin’ them sticks?”
His head came up and he looked straight at me but he couldn’t see me because he’d been staring into fire. He started to fumble for his six-gun, but I told him, “Don’t even consider it, boy, ‘cause I got you already cold and ready for the buryin’ if you do…. Just you ease that pistol out and toss it over my way…. Use two fingers and be careful.”
He gave it a little thought, and decided the risk was a bit extreme, so he eased his weapon out with two fingers and tossed it near my feet.
“Willis,” I said, and his head twitched, “You got yourself a lot more fire than you need, and you’re apt to attract all kinds of folks who might be out and about… like me.”
“Do I know you?”
“I don’t reckon you do, boy, but I know you… I saw you playin’ with that little boy back at the cabin, just before I took him back.”
“You sure played hell, Mister, them horses goin’ crazy and the boy comin’ up missin’ got ol Frank and that Rita madder’n a stepped on rattler. Frank near beat the life outa me… I’m sure he busted a rib or two.”
“What’s your name, Mister? If you’re gonna shoot me, I’d at least like to know who it is that’s a doin’ it.”
“Cain’s the name… Just Cain… and whether or not I shoot you is gonna depend a lot on you.” I gave a little whistle and in a few seconds Dog was at my side. “Now, I goin’ to go bring in my horse, and this dog is goin’ to keep an eye on you…. You move one little bit, and I won’t have to shoot you.”
“Dog… Watch ‘im!” He moved around the fire and crouched himself at Willis’s right elbow. I went and got my horse, and when I came back, neither one of them had moved an inch. They just sat there lookin’ at each other, so I called Dog off.
“You got anything to eat, Willis?” He shook his head and looked at the space between his boots.
“Frank and Rita were gettin’ so mean, when I got the chance to git out of there… I took it and left. I figured on shootin’ some food along the way, but I was scairt that they might be on my trail and hear the shots.”
So I got out the coffee pot and started fixing it, while I started grabbing pieces of burning wo
od and moving that fire to a better place. When that was taken care of, I covered what was left of his with dirt. Then I went to slicing up some smoked pork.
“So tell me, boy, why’d you fellas bust up that cabin?”
“Oh, that was Frank and Rita…. I never knew a body could get that mad… That’s one hard assed woman!”
“We’d gone downstream tryin’ to catch up with you, but we lost your trail, so when we got back to the cabin, they just blowed up.”
”You seem like a decent kind of youngster, how’d you get mixed up with that bunch…. How old are you anyway?”
“I’ll be seventeen in a couple of months. It was my brother, Barney that was in prison with Frank. They all busted out together. Rita got ‘em some mushrooms, and they all took enough to get sick on. And when it wore off in the middle of the night, they over powered the guard and took off through the cemetery door.”
“Where’s Barney now… still up there with them?”
“No, sir, he rode off to mail a letter to git us the money for the boy, but he never came back. I reckon he’s down there in a Taos whorehouse. He always went for one when he had some money.”
“Did they say what their plans were? Where are they headin’?”
“Jesse’s about got Frank talked into goin’ up to Deadwood and robbin’ miners. He says they can make a lot of money up there. But they’re goin’ to do some robbin’ and such all the way up there.”
“What can you tell me about Frank and Rita… Ben Blue, don’t even remember him in that bunch they took down in Texas.”
“To hear Frank tell it, he was the boss of that bunch… but he likes to brag a bit. They come out of Taney County, Missouri… down along the Arkansas line. Frank was one of them murderin’ Baldknobbers. There was a lot of killin’ done by that bunch.”
“Rita told the story on him that when he saw some of his pards decoratin’ them big oak trees out in front of the court house in Christian County, that they started packin’.”
“Heard about that…. they strung a bunch up right there on the court house lawn. I guess them citizens had just about had enough…. That was the beginnin’ of the end of the Baldknobbers.”
He went on and told me all he could about the gang, which wasn’t of much use. There were five of them now including Rita, and I figured she’d be about as salty as any of them. He did say that when they were looking for me, they ran across Jimmer’s horse and one of them was riding it now.
I’m sure Willis had a fitful night’s sleep because every time he would roll over Dog would get right in his face.
~~~~~ 0 ~~~~~
When morning came, I sliced up a bit more of that smoked pork, and Willis got the coffee going. After breakfast, he thanked me for not shooting him until he had something to eat and some coffee… I tried not to laugh because he was dead serious.
“Boy,” I told him, “I’ve decided not to shoot you, but I gotta tell you…. Barney ain’t in no Taos brothel. Barney didn’t make it… He tried to rob me back on the trail.”
I went on and told him where to find the body, if he wanted to bury it. He just hung his head and didn’t say anything. He knew what his brother was like, and I’m sure he expected something like that sooner or later.
“One more thing, Willis…. On your way down, you’re likely to run into a big red haird rancher named Blue. Don’t lie to him ‘cause he’ll see right through it. You tell him that I fed you, gave you coffee and didn’t shoot you, so he’ll most likely let you go. But if you lie to him…. Well just don’t. He’s from those Missouri hills just like Frank…only farther back in woods. He once tracked a couple of fellas for nigh on to eight years. They both wound up at the bottom of a cliff… one of them without a head…. That was his little boy you took.”
If you don’t run into him, you just set your sights on Arizona, Nevada, or better yet China, but get the hell out of New Mexico.
Chapter 8
Watching him ride off down the valley, I turned the other direction going up the valley. They were heading into some pretty rough country which would only get higher and rougher. It would take them a month or better to reach Deadwood. Somehow, I didn’t expect them to make that trip.
I figured they’d head for the populated areas, such as Colorado Springs and Denver. They might even get as far as Cheyenne, if they lived long enough. Stealing a boy off an almost empty ranch was a far sight from holding up an armed gold shipment.
They were still a couple of days ahead of me, but I was making good time. They had left the creek somewhere west of Sawmill Mountain and headed northeast on a trail that looked like it had some regular use. It wasn’t a major kind of road by any means but it was used and there was recent use. They seemed to be working their way toward Colorado.
A few hours of riding and that trail led me to a little hamlet, which proudly proclaimed itself as Empire City. At first glance it didn’t look like it could live up to such a name, but at second glance I had the idea that it couldn’t live up to much of anything. The center of the Empire was a rundown trading post that would make some of those hillside cabins back in Tennessee look mighty good.
There were several other shacks, which could never stack up to the grandeur of the trading post. There was a stream running down the slope that rose up behind Empire City, and I could see a few cabins up higher. It looked like there were a few dreamers up there with gold pans and shovels… luck to ‘em.
Looping my reins over the hitch rail in front of the trading post, I went up the rickety steps to the porch and to the door. I stood there looking the town over. This was just another raw mining town without a past and a damned short future. Them fools come out of towns and villages all over the country with one thing in mind… find the mother lode and go home rich.
Well it happens to about one in ten thousand of those who throw away their life standing knee deep in ice cold water swirling a pan full of gravel. Most of them won’t ever make as much as a cow puncher over their lifetime. And a lifetime for many of them can be pretty darned short due to claim jumpers, conditions, and an occasional arrow from some Injun who woke up grumpy.
I turned and walked through the door. The inside wasn’t much more respectable than the outside, but I’d seen worse. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, so I just ambled up toward the counter.
“Mister you just walk on up to the counter and put both hands on it.” Came a voice from behind me. I did just what I was told; figuring that I’d wait and see what was going on before I got mad. I was already mad at that bunch up ahead, and I didn’t need to get mad unnecessarily. So I waited with my hands on the counter.
I listened to his slow scuffling footsteps behind me, until he went around the end of the counter and was facing me before I looked up. There before me was one of the most disreputable old reprobates I’d seen in a long long time, but he was holding a big old Walker Colt.
“Howdy, Griz,” I said, “That the way you greet potential customers and old pals?”
He looked up at me and blinked a couple of times, and then he stretched his neck for a better look. Those rheumy old red rimmed eyes finally registered as he broke into a broken toothed smile.
“Waal, Shad Cain, what brings you into these hills? I’ll be go to hell…old Shad Cain is still alive. I figgered some Cheyenne or Arapaho had your scalp a dryin’ on a pole somewhere a long time ago… I’ll just be damned.”
“That’s highly likely, Griz…. You being damned, that is, but I still got my forelock.” I took off my hat and showed him.
Griz Turner was an old mountain man, I’d known back in the days of furs and free spirits. He’d been a hundred years old even back then. He looked like he was a hundred and fifty as he grinned at me across the counter.
“When did you give up the Grizzlies and start tending store?”
“Oh it was about four or five years ago. The rheumatics got me from sleepin’ out in the weather an all them years of wadin’ around in beaver ponds… Dammit, Cain, I jus
t got old.”
“I found this place abandoned, so I just moved in. Had me a little garden and shot a little meat… just enough to keep goin’... you know how it is.” Then he leaned over the counter and whispered, “I’d picked up a little gold here and there through the years. so I went into Questa, bought up five pack horses and loaded ‘em with gear. Then I paid for the whole shebang with gold. Then I registered myself a claim on a gold mine.”
“Them fools come a runnin’… and I had me a supply store waitin’ for ‘em. Now the funniest part of all that is that them fools started showin’ color and findin’ enough to keep me in business.”
“That’s all fine and good, Griz, but why’d you pull at old Walker on me?”
“Day afore yestiday, I was here, jest kinda takin’ it easy, when this here womern came in. Now, she weren’t no purty womern by a long shot. She was kinda skinny and rawboned, but she was a womern… I ain’t seen one fer over a year. Waal, you just know I was doin’ everythin’ I could to make her shoppin’ a pleasant experence… if you know what I mean.”
“She asked me fer some canned peaches, an when I turned around to git ‘em, that gal picked up a pick handle and cold-cocked me good. When I woke up she was gone and so was a bunch of stuff from the shelfs… an six dollars from the drawer… So I ain’t takin’ no chances.”
“The boys up on the hill said there was five of ‘em… four men and her. Kinda makes a feller lose respect for womanhood, don’t it? The onlyiest thing that came good out of all that, was that she didn’t find the four hundred dollars in dust in the back room.” Then he laughed.
True to the courtesy code of the mountain man of hospitality, Griz pulled a jug from under the counter and poured each of us a cup. I told him that I’d been tracking that bunch and what they’d done. “And while they were on the run, they shot down a harmless old prospector, just for the sport of it… I think that was the thing that made me go after ‘em… The boy was safe, but the whole idea just got me fired up… You’re just lucky she didn’t beat you to death with that pick handle.”
