Blue Norther (Ben Blue Book 4)

by Lou Bradshaw

“Go ahead and start shootin’ in there. I’ll ride over and see if I can talk him out.”

  It was all of four hundred yards to the back wall of that canyon. There wasn’t anything moving, so all I could do was pick out a likely spot and start shooting. I figured if it was me over there I’d like to be behind that outcrop on the right about halfway back and maybe up above the canyon floor. So I picked a spot on the left side to bounce one off of.

  When that big slug took a couple of bounces among those rocks, I saw movement right where I thought he should be. So I put one in that place. He was up and running, and I was loading as fast as I could. He dove into a nest of boulders, and I put one right in there with him.

  Chapter 15

  I could see movement at the mouth of the canyon, and realized that it was one of my bunch waving his hat. I figured that was to tell me to stop my shooting. Within a minute, a man afoot came out leading a horse. The three got close together, and then they all mounted and rode back toward this side. My guess was, it was over.

  I got up and walked over to the busted up sniper, who lay there staring at me with more hate than I’d seen in a long time. I figured that his scowl wasn’t going to kill me or do me any real harm, so I just took hold of his grimy collar and dragged him out into the open. He made a poor attempt at getting up, so I helped him to his feet… none too gently.

  Picking up his Sharps, I walked over to a good sized limestone boulder and banged that rifle to death. If he hated me before this, he really hated me now. He’d just have to deal with that by himself because I didn’t much care.

  Prodding him with my rifle I said, “Move… and don’t even think about running, ‘cause I’ll bust one of your legs to go along with that floppy wing.” He moved out. When we got to the base of the promontory, I stopped him and pulled him to the ground, I’m sure, leaving him in a good deal of discomfort. “Now, I’m gonna go get my horse.” His was tied about twenty yards off to the right. “You lay right where you are, otherwise you go floppin’ around and that arm is just gonna come off.” I got an earful of some fearful cussin’…. But I’d heard better.

  I led my big gray back through the cedars rather than having to fight off those hat grabbing and face slapping branches. When I came into the open where I’d left that fella, I saw that he had rolled over and was trying to get up. I took my toe and rolled him back over on his bad arm. I’ll bet that hurt because he sure gave a yell. “Mister, your trouble is, you don’t know how to follow instructions.”

  Getting him on his feet again, I managed to stand him on a rock so he could get into his saddle, and we worked our way down the slope to the bottom where the rest were waiting.

  When the tally was made, there was one dead outlaw, one wounded, one with a floppy arm, and two wounded rangers. We worked our way back up to the outlaw’s camp, so we could take care of the wounded and fix some food and coffee.

  All the outlaws were searched thoroughly for hide out weapons. Two knives and a Derringer were found. Then all were tied up. The two wounded rangers were the first to be tended to. Jenkins would need a doc, but we got it cleaned and stopped the bleeding. Carson was only burned above the belt on the left side. It would be sore, but he’d be alright. The wounded outlaw was hit low and mean. The bullet took him from the left side, right through the gut, and out the other side. He probably wouldn’t leave the camp site.

  Someone had built up the fire and cooked up some bacon from the outlaws’ supplies, and with some stale biscuits we were able to make a meal. Breaking camp wasn’t much of an ordeal; we just put out the fire and put everything in the pack horse’s load. The only two problems were what to do about the gut shot outlaw and the one with the busted shoulder.

  “Let me see that shoulder.” Branchard said. “Blue, you’re the biggest, get him on the ground and hold him down.”

  I got him down and sat on his chest. Branch kneeled beside him and put one hand on the top knob of his arm and the other on his elbow, then he moved the whole works around until he found what he wanted. Next he took his hand from the elbow and smacked the back of his left hand with it. That thing went pop, and the outlaw opened his eyes wide.

  Branch took his hands off the shoulder and said, “Try it now.” He did, and it was the first time I’d seen that boy show anything but hatred. He even showed a little smile. “Now, that’s gonna be a little sore, but you’ll get over it before the hangin’.” There went the smile.

  “How’d you know to do that?” Carson asked.

  “Oh, my kid brother had one of those goofy shoulders… I must have put him back together four or five times when we was kids…. Got so I could do it one handed.”

  “What about that one?” Ethan asked, nodding toward the man on the ground.

  “Go on,” I told him, “I’ll sit with him, so he won’t be alone if he wakes up. He won’t last more than a couple hours.”

  After about an hour and a half, I checked on the wounded man, and I couldn’t find any sign of life. He had no heart beat nor could I detect any breathing, so I laid him next to his comrade and made another pile of rocks to match the first one. I hoped they were friends because they’ll be close neighbors for a long time. He never woke up to make his peace….don’t know if he would have anyway. There wasn’t any use in making a marker… I didn’t even know his name. So I said a few words over him and rode away.

  That Smoke horse wanted to move out, so I just gave him his head and he took it. We moved along at a nice lope that he could hold all day long. We caught up with the others in short order and rode the rest of the way into Chamberton. We were six armed men and four men tied to their saddle horns.

  Our little cavalcade rode down the main street of Chamberton, and it seemed like half the town stood on the boardwalk watching without a word. They just stood and stared like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  Stopping in front of the marshal’s office we dismounted and started cutting the rawhide bindings of our prisoners. A crowd was gathering in a semicircle around us. We paid them no mind, but marched our prisoners inside.

  Since I was the only one the marshal knew, I was the one he addressed. “What’s the meaning of this, Blue? You’re beginning to try my patience, Mister.”

  “Well, Marshal,” I said, “We got some prisoners for your jail… There’s two more dead ones out there in the breaks, if you want to go get ‘em.”

  His face turned ripe apple red and he exploded in my face. “Just who in the hell gave you authority to go around arresting and killing people… especially people who are solid citizens of this town?”

  I was about ready to arrest him as well and put him in there with the others, but Ethan stepped forward and said. “I see one town marshal’s badge standing against four Texas Ranger badges and two US Marshal’s badges… Now do you want to lock these men up or do you want to join them in there?”

  I’ll have to give the marshal credit, he had pluck. He stood there and blustered for a about a half a minute, and then he went and opened the cell door.

  “I still don’t think this is legal.” He mumbled as he scowled in my direction. “This is Mr. Chamber’s town, and those are Mr. Chamber’s hired hands. I’ll have to go tell him about this. I don’t think you’ve got any jurisdiction here.”

  Branchard stepped forward and backed the marshal against a wall, and with a stiff finger extending from a big balled fist, he poked the marshal in the chest saying, “You can take it from me, boy, if this town is in the state of Texas, then we’ve got the jurisdiction. And if it’s in the US of A then those other two got that covered.” He punctuated his statement with a pair of sharp finger stabs to the chest. “Now, you go see your Mr. Chambers, and if need be we can make room for him too.”

  “Old Branch is a pretty easy going fella most of the time, but you get him riled and he can be a real tail twister.” Carson told me out of the corner of his mouth. I had to agree.

  The marshal was out of the door and headed for the hotel in a matter of
seconds. We settled in to plan our next move. We could lay siege to the place, but we’d need a dozen more men and a week or more to get it done. Claybrook asked if I had anymore of those little half pound cans of powder. I told him, I still had five left, and that he was welcome to them.

  The marshal came back after about a half hour and told us, “Mr. Chambers wants to have a speedy trial for these men… say ten o’clock tomorrow morning. You’ll be expected to provide your own prosecutor because the town’s only lawyer will be defending these men.”

  Claybrook told him that these men, and anyone else involved in these raids and gun running business would be transported to Amarillo for trial in Federal Court. The marshal went back to the hotel.

  He came back shortly and said that Mr. Chambers was sending a letter to his very good friend, US Marshal Stewart in Santa Fe, New Mexico… “He’s in charge of this area, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.” I told him. “He’s the one that sent me to look things over here…. So I wouldn’t hold out too much hope there…. He didn’t even know this town was here.”

  The marshal blustered some more… he sure liked to bluster. So on a hunch I asked him, “Marshal, when you took this job, who did the swearin’ in… who administered the oath of your office?”

  He looked at me with a cocky smirk and said, “There wasn’t a swearin’ in… I was hired by Mr. Chambers personally. I don’t work for the town; I work directly for Mr. Chambers. My job is to keep the peace. And when the railroad comes through, I’ll become the county sheriff.”

  “Hmm… probably without an election I suppose?” Claybrook said under his breath. “Alright then, Marshal… soon to be sheriff, here’s the plan… We’re going to go out to the Chambers ranch and arrest everybody out there and take the whole bunch to Amarillo, and you can be the lead lawman when we do…. You can be a real lawman or you can be Chambers’ pet lawman…. Which will it be?”

  “I’m not going out to arrest the employees of the man I work for. Are you insane?”

  “That’s pretty much what I figured.” Ethan told him. “As of now, you work only for Tobias Chambers and you hold no municipal position. The peace will be the concern of the Texas Ranger Service…. Ranger Carson, would you disarm this man and find a space for him in one of the cells.”

  Carson already had the former marshal’s sixgun before Claybrook could finish, and was pulling him toward a cell. The marshal started pulling and protesting to the point that Carson rapped him behind his ear with a gun barrel and shoved him in. Carson aimed at a spittoon but missed and said, “Resisting arrest.”

  Carson was about five foot seven and maybe a hundred and sixty solid pounds. I had yet to see him get upset, nervous, angry, or show any other signs of being anything but one tough hombre. I’d also yet to see him hit a spittoon.

  Jenkins had been taken to the doctor’s office to be patched up. Sis came over to the jail to let us know that Jenkins would be kept overnight for observation. That left us a man short. We’d planned to leave Jenkins in charge of the jail while the rest of us went out to the Chambers ranch and paid our respects. So we’d have to hatch up a new plan.

  Chapter 16

  Waiting till after dark, we left Millburn, along with both of our sawed off shotguns, to watch after the jail. The remaining four rode out into the night to see how much mischief we could make. Ethan had set up the plan, and I liked his plan. He and Branchard would come in from the front. Carson and I would cover the back.

  Carson and I tied our horses behind the barn and moved in on foot. It was plenty dark, but there was light coming from the kitchen and the bunkhouse, so we could see enough to keep from banging into things like the outhouse. Of course the outhouse was easy enough to avoid. Carson took his position and I moved up to the back side of the bunkhouse. Then we waited.

  Claybrook and Branchard were getting in position in the front of the ranch yard. After about ten minutes… it felt like an hour, but it probably wasn’t over ten minutes Claybrook touched a match to a pile of dry brush. The brush flared up, and he fired a couple of shots through the windows of the house while Branch put a few into the bunkhouse door.

  “Hallooo the ranch!” he yelled, from well away from the fire’s glow. “This is Deputy US Marshal Claybrook. You are surrounded by Texas Rangers and US Marshals. Come out with your hands up and you’ll get a fair trial. Resist and you’ll be given no considerations for leniency.” That Ethan Claybrook sure could talk nice.

  About a half dozen guns barked and dusted the burning brush. Did they really think he would stand near the light? The answering shots from the house and bunk house, were our signal… we lit our fuses, and ran like hell.

  We could see Carson’s fuse sizzle from our vantage point behind the barn. For about half a minute, those boys in the house and bunkhouse poured lead into the burning brush pile, while we watched the sparking fuse. The can that was tucked in behind the kitchen was the first to go, and then the one that I’d placed against the back wall of the bunkhouse shook their world.

  Just for good measure while they were recovering their senses of balance and hearing I tossed another can up against the outhouse. I figured, if we were trying to make life uncomfortable, then we just ought to take away all their comforts.

  All was quiet except for the crackle of burning timbers and running horses. I figured they must have knocked down the corral poles and took off for open and quieter country. I can’t say that I blamed them. That only meant that some of those boys would have to walk into town when we got them out of those buildings.

  Claybrook called out again, “In the house… in the bunkhouse… come on out with your hands up!.... Nothing… No answer from either place, so he repeated his message and added, “You’ve got thirty seconds before the next bomb goes off.”

  “The bunkhouse is givin’ up…. Don’t shoot…. We’re coming out…. DON’T SHOOT!”

  “Come ahead… hands in the air…. Don’t even think about making a run for it.”

  Two men came out with their hand in the air. In the light of the burnin toilet… there must have been something highly burnable in there cause it sure went up. Of course, we’d have to watch our step.

  “Walk toward the back of the barn.” Claybrook told them. “How many more are in the bunkhouse?”

  “None… It was jus me an Buck…. Now he cain’t hear nothin’ quieter than a cannon.” One of them told us as he guided Buck toward the back of the barn.

  When the pair came around the corner we grabbed them and shoved them against the charred surface of the barn and patted them down for weapons. Within two minutes they were both tied and sitting against the back of the barn.

  I asked them, “How many are in the house?”

  The one who could hear, said that there were four more in the house. He named off the four, one of which was Banks. “What about the cook?” I asked.

  “Buck here’s the cook, but he took sick an we didn’t want him cookin’ fer us till he was well again. He ain’t none too clean anyway.”

  I called out to Claybrook, “Four in the house, get your bomb ready… we’ll stop ‘em comin’ this way.” Now that was a nice little speech, but neither Ethan nor Branch had any bombs. So he knew that we were going to try something. Chances are, he knew what we were planning.

  “If I can go through that hole in the wall,” I told Carson, “I can drop one of those cans right in their lap…. You get up to that side window and when they start to scramble, you start blastin’ away with your sixgun… don’t matter if you hit any of ‘em. It’ll keep ‘em diggin’ for a hole to crawl into.”

  We skulked up to the back wall of what used to be the kitchen. It was pretty much a shambles now. That blast had blown the cook stove over and hot cinders were scattered all about. The house was a three room affair with a kitchen, a parlor which had two long tables and a bunch of chairs all tossed around, that must be the eating room. The last room must be Banks’ private quarters. There were several candles and a lam
p lit in the eating room, so I could see well enough to tell that there weren’t any people in there. I heard something behind me, and turned to see Carson coming through the hole.

  He saw the same thing from the window that I saw… an empty room. I motioned to the door leading to Banks’ room, and we moved to it as quiet as we could. This part of the house was built of pine logs, whereas the kitchen and the bunkhouse were plank walls. We stationed ourselves on either side of the door, I kicked it in with a crash. I expected a hailstorm of bullets thudding against those logs and whizzing through the open door. Nothing happened.

  “Banks,” I called out, I’m lightin’ this fuse. It’s got about a half a minute, give or take before it blows that room apart and you with it.”

  I lit the fuse and held the can in my hand near the door opening so that the sparks could be easily seen. We watched the fuse burn for about twenty seconds, and then I pulled it from the can and threw both fuse and can into the room. Of course nothing happened. I mean nothing happened. There was no explosion and what troubled me even more there was no scurrying around. Just no noise at all.

  Carson cut up a bit of cloth from a chair back, tied one end in a knot, and poured coal oil on it from the lamp on the knot. Next he touched the knot with a candle flame, and he had a nice little fire ball with a tail to swing it with. He swung that fire ball around and let it fly through the door. While the room was lit from that flying torch, we could easily see that there wasn’t a soul at home. The fireball landed on the bare floor, bounced once, and disappeared. Grabbing a candle and the lamp we rushed in.

  There, near the far wall was a two foot square hole in the floor. At the bottom of the ladder, lay the burning knot of cloth. I told Carson to make a couple more torches, and we’d check out this rabbit hole.

  While he was doing that, I went to the front door and called to Claybrook, “Trap door and a tunnel… they’re gone.”

  He and Branch were inside in about as long as it took me to say my piece. Carson had broken off a couple of chair legs and wrapped them with more of the cloth. And again he soaked them with coal oil.