Blue Norther (Ben Blue Book 4)

by Lou Bradshaw

  BLUE NORTHER

  By Lou Bradshaw

  Blue Norther © 2014, L E Bradshaw

  No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without written permission from the author, except for excerpts used for review purposes.

  Blue Norther Cover Art © 2014, L E Bradshaw

  All rights reserved

  This book is a work of fiction, and is a product of the author’s imagination. All characters are fictional except for references to well known historical figures. Some liberties may have been taken with regard to exact geographic features.

  This book is dedicated to my lovely wife, Avon, who has become an invaluable researcher, consultant, and sounding board… she doesn’t sugar coat anything.

  Other books by Lou Bradshaw available from Amazon Kindle for Kindle and other devices.

  A FINE KETTLE OF FISH

  HICKORY JACK

  BLUE

  ACE HIGH

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  Another bullet ricocheted off the rocks behind us and sailed off with a murderous whine. Then I saw the smoke and a second or so later heard the deep boom of that big Sharps .50. Whoever was doing the shooting was at least four hundred yards away and atop a ridge. He had the advantage of range; our Winchesters were no match for that buffalo gun. We were pinned down and no hope of getting unpinned before dark.

  There were four others out there with rifles, but they were between us and the long shooter and on lower ground. Their plan must have been to hit us down in the valley and let the sniper keep us from getting to high ground. Luckily for us that boy up there wasn’t an old buffalo hunter. When he shot to turn us away from this nest of boulders half way up the ridge, he missed wide and high… we kept on riding and scrambling… hard.

  From his vantage point, he had us, but he couldn’t get at us or our horses. The four men down below, couldn’t very well get to us either, but they could sure keep us from leaving. They were about thirty or forty feet lower and a couple hundred yards out. Well concealed, they were, with plenty of cover in that rock strewn little valley, and they were spread out. They had formed a semi-circle around us, and that fella with the Sharps on a ridge a little right of center. We were backed up against solid rock… about ten or twelve feet of it, we’d play hell getting our horses out that way.

  Leaving Sam to keep an eye on our friends down below, I worked my way through the rocks to where we’d stashed our horses behind a shield of fallen limestone. They were safe there, but I needed to ease their cinches and give them a little water. Filling my hat several times, I gave them each a little water. There was some foliage within their reach, but not much. We still had three canteens of water, but that wouldn’t last long with us and the horses needing it.

  I didn’t plan on staying up here that long. One way or another we were getting out of here tonight. So far, no blood had been spilled, so if those boys wanted to just pack up and ride off, I’d be happy to call it a draw. But I had a hunch that wasn’t part of their plan. If they didn’t change their plans, someone would be bleeding before morning. If any of that blood was spilled by that old man hunkered down over there with a rifle in his hands or that big gray horse back there, then those boys had better kill me or start finding holes to hide in.

  All I could do for now was sit back and wait them out. So I sat and watched and thought. I thought about how this all started and everything that had happened in the last nine or ten months.

  It had been quite a year. When I got back to my valley, after taking last spring’s herd to the railhead up in Colorado, I went calling on Miss Patty Anne Stellars. I’d had enough of her stalling. It was time to put my foot down and make my stand. I just stomped up those steps to her porch and banged on the door. She opened the door, smiled and said, “Why, if it isn’t that nice Mr. Ben Blue. My goodness, it’s been a while since we’ve seen you. Have you been gone?”

  I said, “Patty Anne… will you marry me… please?”

  She blushed up and got real shy and demure. She looked down at the floor and real quiet like, and then looked from under those lashes and said, “I don’t know, Ben. You’ll have to ask my granpa.”

  From the kitchen, Sam Stellars yelled out, “Hell yes, she will, and it’s about damned time!” Well that about sewed up the engagement.

  For the next two months, I was the forgotten man. There’s just no place a fella can be comfortable as the “Groom”, once those women get this wedding business cranked up. So I just naturally faded into the background along with her grandpa and let them have at it. Besides, I had ranching stuff to take care of. I had cattle to look at and horses to ride.

  The hacienda was ready. Patty had supervised the building of it and the furnishing of it, so I’d have to say she probably liked how it turned out. It was built in a Spanish style with lots of open area and heavy furniture. There was a lack of clutter that we see so much of in most of the American homes. Sam would practically have his own wing, with his own entrance and his own veranda to sit, and smoke his pipe. Yet he would have access to the rest of the house as well… especially the kitchen. That of course, depended on if and when he chose to leave his own ranch and move up to the MB connected. The welcome mat was out for him whenever he was ready.

  Sam wasn’t quite ready to move onto the MB yet, and that was fine. The S-S or commonly known as the Esses was his home where, he and his wife had raised their son, and he had raised Patty Anne practically by himself.

  The S-S was a good spread with a fine herd, good graze and water, but Sam was getting well along in years. He no longer had a son to take over the place, and with Patty soon leaving to come to the MB, Sam was kinda losing interest in ranching. Of course the two spreads were no more than six miles apart, so visiting back and forth was definitely an option. He talked about selling out, but I didn’t push him one way or the other.

  Sam and I spent a good deal of time together during the preparations for the big event, since we were both more or less invisible, we just got off together and talked about man stuff. At least when we were together we each felt like we were visible again.

  Sam told me, “Ben, I’d like to get out of the ranchin’ business, but what about Charlie and the rest of the boys. This is their home as much as it is mine. Charlie has turned into a top notch cattleman and a first rate foreman… I’d sure hate to put him out of work.”

  “Well, Sam,” I said, “Charlie and the crew knew sooner or later that it would happen. As far as Charlie’s concerned, I’d make him on as foreman of the MB in a half second. Rafe don’t want it, Delgado and Jesus are both pining to get back to the border country, and Tater is still learning cattle…. He’ll make a good cattleman some day, but he’s got some seasoning to get done.”

  Sam tapped out his pipe and looked at it for a good half minute and said, “You’d do that for Charlie?”

  “I wouldn’t just do it for Charlie, but I’d sure as hell do it for myself and the ranch… I know Charlie, and I know what you’ve taught him. He’s a ways smarter than that bobbin’ Adam’s apple would lead you to believe.”

  He sat there with that cold pipe clenched in his tee
th and looked out over the plateau. “Ben, I like what you say, but I just don’t know if I’m ready to hang up my spurs yet.”

  “Can’t say that I blame you much there, Sam. You’ve got a great place here and a good crew. This has been your home for a long time and you’re as much a part of it as, it’s a part of you.”

  We sat drinking coffee for a while. Neither of us wanted to intrude on the other’s thoughts, but out of nowhere, I had a thought. “Sam, just give this some consideration. If you were to make Charlie your Ranch Manager, you’d still be in the business but just not as active. You could move up to the MB where you’d have a horse to ride when you wanted or a calf to rope when you felt like it… You’d only be six miles from the Esses and you could come and go as you pleased. Sure, you’d have to pay Charlie a bit more, but you’d turn all the headaches over to him.”

  That caught his attention, and I could tell that he was chasing that around in his mind trying to get a rope on it. “You jes let me do some thinkin’ on that, Ben” and then he muttered something about not having to sell the place. About that time, Rosa started clanging the dinner bell.

  Well, the wedding came off with nary a hitch. The ladies were all beautiful, and the gents were all uncomfortable until the drinking, eating and dancing commenced. It was held at the Hacienda MB or better known as Casa Del Blue. The ladies had done a wonderful job of decorating the place. I just moved out to the old cabin where I’d lived before the casa was built.

  Folks came from all over the plateau and points beyond, with a good mix of Spanish and English being spoken. Father Paul, who acted as my best man was there, as well as the Don and Dona. The good padre surprised me by being in a finely tailored Spanish style suit. I’m sure there were any number of senoritas and perhaps a few senoras who were disappointed that he had joined the priesthood. He said, “I’m here as a member of the wedding party and guest, I’m not here as a priest.” He did, however, manage to bless the bride and groom while making his toast.

  There was a whole steer on a spit over hot coals in the yard and just about anything anybody wanted to eat or drink. Don Carlos brought a message from Marshal Stewart that he couldn’t make it due to business matters. But that was the business of lawmen everywhere.

  Tater or JL as Patty had insisted on calling him was cleaned up pretty well. She told me, “Ben, that boy is just too darned cute to be called Tater… It sounds like something you’d peel and put into a stew pot… He reminds me a lot… of Andy.” She said with eyes that were starting to mist up.

  I had to agree. There were a lot of things about JL that were Andy like. In appearance, he was about the same size, but he had so many of Andy’s other qualities as well such as attitude, sense of humor… and charm. He didn’t have Andy’s gun skills, and I hoped he never developed them.

  James L Tate had been invaluable to me on the cattle drive to the rail head. He rode hard, fought hard, and lost a good friend… and he could cook. The few months he’d been on the MB, he had proven that I’d made a good decision to hire him.

  That was all in June of ’76 and now it was March of ’77. Both Patty Anne and I have thoroughly enjoyed these married months. There still aren’t any redheaded babies on the place… but I guess there shouldn’t be yet. And as far as I know, there’s none in the making… and it ain’t from lack of effort, I guess it’s from lack of timing. Oh well, they’ll come along in their own good order.

  Back in September, Sam made Charlie his ranch manager and moved on up to the MB where he spent a good deal of time aggravating Patty and Maria, the cook and Patty’s housekeeping helper. Patty had insisted that she could take care of her own house and do the cooking, but that’s a big house and the four hungry ranch hands plus Sam and me nearly worked her down to a nub. Things are running smoother now since Maria came to live with us.

  Patty was happy and so was everyone else… well almost everyone. I was like a caged cougar waiting for spring to come. Oh, I had plenty to do, but all I wanted to do was go into my… I don’t know what to call it, but it’s where I do my paper work and my thinking and planning. All I wanted to do was go in there and pick up those sale bills from Texas and dream about those white faced cattle.

  The Herefords, as they are properly named are shorter legged and smaller than longhorns, but they pack in a lot more beef. The only rub against them was that nobody thought they would be tough enough to survive in the west.

  A few hardy souls in Texas, Kansas, and Wyoming had taken a chance on them, and had been rewarded with good survival rates… those critters were tougher than they looked. They had turned the bulls in with their longhorn cows and started breeding the long leggedness, those deadly horns, and those cat hams out of the offspring. Longhorns for all their toughness and strength just don’t seem to have big round thighs. Those portions are all tough stringy muscle like a cat.

  The day of the longhorn was coming toward twilight. They had served their purpose and served it well. They had opened the west to an industry and fed millions of people in the eastern states. They had helped pay the cost of building railroads from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. But whiteface cattle were the future, and I wanted some.

  So I moped around thinking of those Herefords and being impatient with my plans for expanding and growing. Now, most people would say ‘What the hell are you thinking, boy? You’re way ahead of where you ought to be at your age.’ I know that and I’m thankful for it. Sometimes, I swear, I’m just shot with luck. My cattle are thriving in this valley. My horses are doing extremely well, as they should with the Mustang Arab sire, and the pure Arab mares and the Mustang Arab mares. Those are some of the finest horses anywhere. The young are getting queries and buyers from hundreds of miles.

  As I see it, a business, any business is like a man, a tree, or a cow, the point when it stops growing is the point where it starts to die. I want the MB to keep growing. It was just that I didn’t feel right picking up and running off to who knew where to look at a bunch of cows and leave Patty Anne sittin’ at home twiddling her thumbs.

  It was time to start thinking about the roundup, but all I could think about was what those whiteface could mean to the ranch in the future. Since the valley was closed and the only cattle here wore the same brand, roundup wouldn’t be a big problem. We wouldn’t need reps or help. We’d have to brand some calves, for sure, but the five of us could handle it easy enough.

  The MB sat in an elevated valley where the plateau met the Sangre de Cristos. The beauty of it is, there is only one way in and one way out, which is a gap that crosses land that I hold a deed to. Oh, there are other ways into the valley, and it wouldn’t be any trick to ride a horse in or out, or even bring in a flock of sheep, but there’s no way of getting a herd of cattle in without coming through my gate. You couldn’t even get a buckboard in unless you came through that gate.

  That valley’s about fifteen miles long and three to five miles wide, and it’s all good, well watered graze. It’s like the hand of God reached down and scooped that valley out of those foot hills leaving it surrounded by mostly timbered and rugged slopes.

  I can’t say that I chose it with a great deal of genius thinking. I stumble on it and bought three lined up homesteads from three brothers who wanted to go to California and pick up gold off the ground. One of those homesteads lay right across the mouth of the gap. Like I said… I was shot with luck.

  I woke up well before the sun and lay there for a good long time, not wanting to disturb Patty Anne. After a while, I eased my way out of bed grabbing my clothes and slipped into the hall. I pulled on my clothes and went to the kitchen carrying my boots. Pulling my watch from my vest pocket and winding it, I saw that it was only half past four. Maria wouldn’t be up for another hour or there abouts. I went to work on the cookstove, and soon had it hot and coffee going.

  I’d spent enough time on my own to know how to make coffee and scrounge a little something to hold a man over till breakfast. I was standing there in my well darned so
cks just looking at the little wisps of steam coming from under the lid waiting to add the coffee, when I heard the slightest noise come from the doorway behind me.

  My first reaction was to reach down and put my hand on my gunbutt, which naturally wasn’t on my hip. My eyes scanned the counters and stove in front of me looking for a weapon… all I had was a coffee pot full of near boiling water… I waited.

  Chapter 2

  A rustle of clothing and a soft sweet voice saying, “Ben, is there something wrong… are you alright? You’re not sick are you?”

  Taking time to exhale and change from tense to a more relaxed posture, I smiled and turned around. “Why no, Sweet Pea, everything’s just fine… I just woke up and knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I didn’t want to lay there tossing around and wake you. But I guess I did anyway… didn’t I?”

  “No.” she lied. “I could just tell that you were gone. It’s funny, I slept alone for so many years, and I don’t miss it at all. But I can sure tell when you’re not there.”

  She looked so pretty standing there with all the dark curly hair all a tumble and framing her face in the lamp’s glow that I almost forgot about the coffee. Finally, she said, “Are you going to boil that water just to be boiling water, or are you going to make coffee with it? Here, let me do it.”

  I vacated my post at the cookstove and got out some cups. I set out some left over baked goods. I had a flash of a memory from back in Missouri of our neighbor, Elizabeth Thompson… there was always something good coming out of her oven. I had to smile.

  “What is it that amuses you… you big red headed lunk” she asked.

  I straightened up and wiped the smile away and replied, “Oh, I was just remembering another woman who used to try and win my favor with some pretty fine baking.”

  “Humph!” she gave a little snort…. “How’d that work out for you?”