The Comancheros

by Stephen Lodge

  “Consider this a fire alarm,” yelled Sheriff Dubbs. “All of you who are members of the volunteers gather outside, right now.”

  Most of the men headed straight for the door, bumping one another out of the way in order to be first.

  Among the volunteers were Charley, Roscoe, and Feather.

  Confused, Holliday went over to the sheriff.

  “Do you hafta be a citizen of Juanita ta help fight the fire?” he wanted to know.

  “No, sir,” said Sheriff Dubbs. “We’ll take anyone we can get if it means savin’ our town.”

  “Good,” said the old trick shooter. “Rod, Kelly . . . any others who ain’t connected to this town officially . . . get on out there and grab a bucket.”

  Henry Ellis found himself alone as the large room emptied out. Then a thought came to him: I reckon I’m a full-fledged citizen of Juanita now, so why, in the devil’s name, am I still standing here?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Four days had passed since they had buried Henry Ellis’s mother and father. Charley had decided that his grandson might just need a little more time to himself in order to get more of a grasp on what had happened, and to privately grieve if he felt the need.

  The storms continued to come and go, delivering rain, hail, or just the heavy winds that were pushing the northern tempests in their direction.

  The boy got up early. Even though the room was cold, he washed up in the pan of cold water beside his bed that Roscoe set there for him every morning. Then he dressed in his denims and a new wool shirt, pulling on his boots as an afterthought.

  If I’m going to be living here in West Texas, I better start looking like a West Texan was what he was thinking to himself as he left the room.

  He could smell the bacon frying as he bolted toward the kitchen. And when he entered the room, the other terrific aromas of Roscoe’s cooking enticed him over to the table, where he sat down beside Charley.

  The kitchen was overly warm, and the windows were already covered with a sheet of condensation. His grampa was already eating—washing down every other bite with a big gulp of Arbuckles coffee.

  “It’s good to see you, son,” said Charley.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Grampa . . . Roscoe,” he nodded.

  “Since you’re here, you must feel like you’re ready to go back to work,” said Charley.

  “Work?” echoed the boy. “What kind of work?”

  “How does hunting down a gang of bank robbers sound to you, son?”

  Roscoe set the boy’s plate in front of him, along with a steaming cup of coffee. This was the first time ever Henry Ellis had been offered coffee.

  He took a sip. It burned his lips, but he held back any expression of pain.

  “Just give me a minute to eat my breakfast,” said Henry Ellis, “and I’ll be right with you.”

  Henry Ellis came through the screen door, off the back porch. He skipped the steps as he jumped down to the ground in the ranch yard. Roscoe and Charley were waiting for him. They were already in their saddles and holding the reins to the boy’s horse.

  On his way over to join them, he spotted the family graveyard beside the barn. He noticed the two new stones that were not there before, and couldn’t help himself as he was drawn to them.

  He stopped and stood outside the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the gravestones, and he read the two inscriptions on the stones. The first read:

  KENT MICHAEL PRITCHARD

  1868 – 1900

  Husband and Father

  RIP

  The second stone had been engraved to read:

  BETTY JEAN SUNDAY PRITCHARD

  Daughter – Mother – Wife

  1870 – 1900

  A good wife and daughter.

  Henry Ellis stood there for a moment or two longer. Seeing it engraved in stone had finally made it all real for him. Tears began to flow down both cheeks, and as much as he wished his sniffling would stop, it wouldn’t.

  He felt the gentle hand of Grampa Charley rest on his shoulder. He knew Charley would always be standing behind him, no matter what.

  “Are you all right with it now, son?” asked Charley.

  “I’ll never be all right with it, Grampa,” answered the boy. “Not until I find whoever did this—”

  “Hold on, son,” said Charley, cutting in. “They were caught in a cross fire. They could have been hit by the lawmen’s bullets as well as those of the Cropper Gang. There ain’t no reason to hold a grudge, son. These things happen. Sometimes it’s best we forget and forgive.”

  “Well, I’m not going to forget, or am I going to forgive. I just hope you catch that Cropper Gang. Because, when you do, it’ll make me a whole lot happier.”

  Within fifteen minutes, Charley, Roscoe, and Henry Ellis were trotting down the road toward the entrance gate. Roscoe dismounted and unlocked the gate. He let the others through, then he squeezed himself and his horse through the opening behind them. He locked the gate and remounted, kicking out after the others who had gone on ahead.

  “Hey, fellas,” Roscoe shouted, “wait fer me.”

  He reined up beside the two, and together, they rode toward town.

  It was sprinkling lightly when they reached Flora Mae’s place. The drizzle hadn’t even had time to dampen their outer clothing before they had tied off their horses and entered the establishment.

  Like the kitchen back at the ranch, and most other interior rooms in Juanita, the windows were sweating on the inside yet freezing on the opposite side of the pane.

  Charley slid out of his sheepskin coat. The others did the same before crossing over to the bar behind Charley, where several others were sitting.

  Feather was sleeping on one of the pool tables, while Holliday practiced his fast draw beside the bar.

  Bud the bartender had some coffee simmering on the old potbellied stove next to the bar, and he set up two cups and poured when he saw Charley and Roscoe enter.

  “Give my grandson a cup of that belly-warming brew, will you, Bud?” said Charley. “If he’s going to be doing a man’s work, he ought to be allowed to drink like one.”

  Roscoe leaned in. “You don’t want Henry Ellis ta be drinkin’ whiskey, now do ya?” said Roscoe.

  Charley chuckled. “No, Roscoe,” said Charley. “No whiskey. I’m just starting him off on coffee to begin with. When he proves he can handle it, I might be tempted to buy him his first shot of whiskey.”

  “Thanks, Grampa,” said the boy. “But I don’t think I ever want to try any liquor. I’ve seen what it can do to people.”

  He glanced over to Feather who was snoring like a lumberjack sawing logs.

  “You mean him?” said Charley. “Ol’ Feather ain’t had a drink in a long, long time now.”

  “But that doesn’t matter, Grampa,” said Henry Ellis. “There’s something different about Feather. He’s not like you and Uncle Roscoe. You’ve seen him. He can take a drink when you least expect it. Why, I’ll bet he’s even been to a sanitarium before to help him stop . . . but that still didn’t keep him away from the bottle, did it?”

  “I have a lot of faith in Feather, Henry Ellis,” said Charley. “Now that he’s staying on the water wagon, ol’ Feather’s back to his old ways, now that he gave up John Barleycorn.”

  The boy could only stare at Charley. What he was trying to say just wasn’t getting through.

  “Here ya go, Henry Ellis,” said Bud, setting down a cup of coffee in front of the boy.

  About then, one of Sheriff Dubbs’s deputies entered the pool hall. He saw Charley near the bar and called over to him.

  “Hey, Charley. Sheriff wants ta see you in his office. Says he’s got some information on the Cropper Brothers’ Gang. He thinks he knows where they’re hidin’ out.”

  Nearly everyone in the place, not just Charley, got up and followed the deputy out of the building.

  While the deputy stood back and watched, Charley led them all out onto the street, then down the conne
cting boardwalk to the sheriff’s office.

  Willingham Dubbs, sheriff of Kinney County, was sitting at his desk talking with a smallish man in his late fifties, who wore black sleeve garters with a starched shirt and vest, plus a short-brim derby hat. Both men turned as Charley stepped through the door, asking the others to remain outside until he learned more.

  “What’s this I hear about you having some new information on the Croppers?” he said to the sheriff as he closed the door behind him.

  Dubbs swiveled his chair around.

  “Glad you could come on such a short notice, Charley,” said the sheriff. “I’d like you to meet Mr. Beverly DeSoto . . . he’s in charge of railroad track inspections.”

  “I supervise twenty-two men in this district . . . the Forty-third,” said DeSoto. “They cover all exposed track between San Antonio to the east and Del Rio to the west. North and South, they cover the right-of-way from San Angelo to Eagle Pass.”

  “And they check the track—”

  “Their job is to make sure nothing’s wrong with the track and to keep it in good repair.”

  “Your deputy said you had some new information on where the Cropper Gang might be holed up. Is that true?” asked Charley, not really trying to hide his impatience anymore.

  “If you’ll give Mr. DeSoto a chance, Charley,” said the sheriff. “I think he was about ta get ta that.”

  The railroad man looked first to the sheriff and then to Charley, who was nodding for him to go on.

  “I was about ta get ta that, Mr. Sunday. Just hear me out, will ya?”

  “Go ahead, DeSoto,” said Charley. “I won’t interrupt you again.”

  “Well,” DeSoto began, “two of my men were out scoutin’ track yesterday, when they saw somethin’ mighty peculiar. They were on a workman’s velocipede . . .”

  He coughed . . . “A handcar . . . headin’ down toward Eagle Pass when they saw ’em.”

  “Saw who?” said Charley.

  “They saw the Cropper Brothers. Damnit, Charley,” said the sheriff. “They saw both Sam and Dale Cropper, hightailin’ it up the rightaway. They were headed south until they cut off to the west, right about where Sam Marley built his homestead, a couple hundred yards from the water tower.”

  “They rode on up into that Dead Cat rock formation,” said DeSoto. “The one that sticks up right there, just like someone dumped a pile of boulders. Right there, before ya get to the river.”

  “So you’re saying they crossed the river into Mexico?” said Charley.

  “No,” answered DeSoto. “I’m sayin’ they rode into them rocks is what I’m sayin’.”

  “Mr. DeSoto’s employees told him the Croppers rode their horses right inta Dead Cat Rocks. That’s what they’re sayin’,” said the sheriff.

  “That place is full of caves, and there’s plenty of water tanks, it bein’ the rainy season as it is.”

  “Are we supposed to think the whole gang could be hiding out in one of those caves?” asked the sheriff.

  “That, or they were just takin’ a shortcut,” said DeSoto. “But my men hung around . . . from a great distance, mind you . . . and those two never came out of those rocks in the whole hour my men were there.”

  Sheriff Dubbs turned to Charley.

  “That’s an awful long way to go,” he said, “just riding a hunch. Besides, that’s in the next county over. Maybe I should send the sheriff in Eagle Pass a wire, advising him before we make a trek like that.”

  “Willingham,” said Charley. “You remember how Sheriff Jenkins, over there in Eagle Pass, bungled it the last couple of times you relied on his doing something for you that you should have done yourself.”

  “Yes, I surely do,” said the sheriff. “And I reckon you’re right, Charley. We gotta go over there ourselves, less’n we wanna take the chance that Jenkins bungles it this time, too.”

  “All right then,” said Charley. “I got your posse all rounded up for you, just outside. Go take a pee, if you need to. I know I am. Get your horse and meet me out front in ten minutes.”

  The outfit had been on the trail to Eagle Pass, and hopefully the Cropper Brothers’ hideout, for two hours. Only this time, it wasn’t under Charley’s guidance. They had all been deputized—even though that would mean nothing in a county other than the one in which they had been sworn in.

  They were prepared to camp overnight if they found the need to. Roscoe had their food packed on a mule he’d brought along. They all wore their rain slickers. The weather had not changed and was continuing to produce storm after storm.

  Charley had allowed Henry Ellis to ride along with them, mainly because Roscoe had also been deputized and no one would have been left back at the ranch to look after him. Kelly had also been sworn in, and she sat in her saddle at Rod’s side the entire way.

  They all rode along together for the next six or seven hours, and when they stopped in Del Rio to purchase extra ammunition, they also found a little Mexican café where they took their supper.

  They could have all stayed overnight in several local Del Rio hotels, but Sheriff Dubbs told them hotel rooms weren’t in his budget. So they all camped out in a local farmer’s hay barn, with a roof that protected them when a big storm came along around midnight.

  The farmer who owned the barn was an old friend of Stink Manning’s. Stink had shown up after everyone else had been deputized and was told he couldn’t go. But he begged Sheriff Dubbs to reconsider until the lawman gave in and deputized him, too.

  When the first flash of lightning and its following boom of thunder exploded all around them, it woke half of the posse, including Charley and the sheriff. Henry Ellis stirred, but he didn’t wake up. Within minutes, the rain was coming down—and it kept coming for the rest of the night.

  Just before daybreak, Roscoe got up to start breakfast. Henry Ellis joined him, helping with the wood for the fire and stirring the batter for Roscoe’s buttermilk pancakes after Roscoe mixed the ingredients.

  When the coffee was ready, the aroma itself began waking the men. And by the time they’d finished their first cup, Roscoe was ready with the pancakes, butter, and syrup. He had also fried up some strips he’d sliced from the side of bacon he’d brought along, and he forked a few sizzling pieces into each man’s mess kit as they stood in front of him to receive their portion.

  By seven a.m., they were on the trail again, and the trail to Eagle Pass was just that—a wagon-rutted trail. And a muddy trail at that. Even though the rain had let up some, a sharp, northerly wind had picked up and was becoming quite abrasive to the men’s faces and other exposed skin.

  They tied their neckerchiefs over their noses and wrapped scraps of wool blankets around their necks, until it got so cold and uncomfortable they had to stop.

  Feather had found an old railroad workers’ shack, near the tracks that paralleled the trail, and the posse found safe harbor inside, where they stayed long enough to warm themselves up and gulp down more of Roscoe’s coffee.

  “If I’da known the weather was gonna be this bad,” said Sheriff Dubbs, “I’da sent that telegram like I wanted to do in the first place.”

  “You’re just getting spoiled in your old age, Willingham,” said Charley. “Why, if a bunch of old geezers like Feather, Roscoe, Holliday, and me can do it, so can you. What are you now, Willingham? Fifty-five?”

  “Forty-nine,” said the sheriff. “Old enough fer my bones ta ache.”

  “Well, when those ol’ bones of yours start aching again, just think of ol’ Roscoe over there . . . and Feather, and Holliday . . . and me. Every one of us have got at least fifteen years on you, Willingham. So, when we all start complaining about the cold, just maybe someone’ll give a damn about you.”

  Henry Ellis walked over to Charley.

  “Grampa,” he said. “Would you mind if I had a cup of coffee, too? I just need something to warm up my insides.”

  “I told you the other day, before we left Juanita, that as far as I’m concerned you’re
old enough to drink coffee. Now, go on. Get yourself a cup, before we have to go outside and mount up again.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The trail from Del Rio to Eagle Pass was more wagon ruts than anything else. What made it easier to follow, with all the mud that had accumulated in the deep gouges over the past month of bad weather, was that it ran parallel to the railroad tracks.

  When Charley first saw Dead Cat Rocks, for some reason the formation looked much larger than he’d remembered it being. Why, it’s big enough to conceal a whole army, let alone fifteen members of a gang of bank robbers, he thought to himself.

  When the posse reached the water tower—an old wooden tank, atop eight braced six-by-six wooden supports, with a spout that could be lowered to refill the great engines that traveled the iron rails—the sheriff called for them to stop and dismount.

  The remains of Sam Marley’s homestead could be seen to the west of where they stood, with its weather-worn adobe bricks standing no more than three feet tall. A reminder of the original, dug-out shelter that had been there until the Comanches burned the Marleys out.

  But it was the Dead Cat rock formation, which began several hundred feet beyond the Marley house ruins, that was sparking everyone’s interest. Right now, there could be a gang of train robbers hiding in the crevices between those giant boulders, or holed up in one of its many caves.

  “There’s two ways of doin’ this,” said the sheriff. “We can just ride in slowly and sniff the place out . . . or we can split up, with half of us going around to the other side . . . and on my signal, we’d rush ’em from both sides. The second way is probably the best. It would take ’em by surprise.”

  “I got an even better way to get ’em out of there, Willingham,” said Charley. “Split up, like you say, but only one-half of us rush in firing our guns. That should flush ’em out the other side, and right into the hands of the rest of our posse.”