by Charles Ray
“I’m aimin’ my gun at you, ‘cause I don’t trust you. I think you lyin’ ‘bout goin’ deer huntin’. Now, you wanta tell me why the two of you followin’ this here trail?”
Bass slunk lower on his horse, and pulled his hat off. “Okay, mister, you done got us, and you got us good. We ain’t deer hunters. We used to ride with Mr. Bob Dozier. Back a few months ago, he sent us over Fort Sill way to sell some stuff we done . . . come by. He said to meet him here in the hills when we come back. He was s’posed to be down to Muskogee, but I heared the law after him ‘cause he done kilt a Texas Ranger, so naturally he wasn’t there. We come up here lookin’ for him.”
Joseph smiled. Not out of happiness, but because he knew what Bass was up to, and was backing his play by playing the subservient gang member looking for the boss.
“He didn’t tell you where he’d be up here?” The man was still suspicious.
“Now, how he gon’ do that, if we didn’t see him in Muskogee?”
The man scratched his chin, lowering his rifle slowly. His friend was now holding his rifle across his chest, apparently having bought into the story Bass had hastily made up.
“Yeah, I ‘spect that make sense. But, you done come to the wrong place. This valley b’long to the Clayton Brothers, and they don’t cotton to strangers. So, you best turn your horses ‘round and go back the way you come.”
The other man nudged his partner. “Too late, Hoke. Here come Billy now.” He looked up at Bass and Joseph. “Sorry, boys, but Billy, he the youngest of the three brothers, and the meanest. He likely to jest shoot you when he git here.”
Bass looked at Joseph. “Then, I reckon we’d best skedaddle, Joseph.” He nudged his horse forward by pressing his knees in its flanks, at the same time, cross drawing his revolvers, and aiming them at the startled outlaws’ faces. “Now, I suggest the two of you drop them rifles and back off, ‘cause I can drop you both ‘fore you can aim ‘em again.”
They looked from Bass to Joseph who was now aiming his rifle at the outlaw on the right.
“And, I can put another couple bullets in you just to make sure,” he said.
Facing two revolvers that seemed to have appeared in Bass’s hands by magic, and the business end of Joseph’s rifle, the two men dropped their rifles and took three large steps backward, raising their hands to their shoulders.
Bass took a quick glance. A rider was approaching, about two hundred yards away and closing fast.
“Now,” he said. “Don’t go thinkin’ you can grab them rifles and shoot us in the back as we ride away. I gon’ be looking over my shoulder, and if you move toward ‘em, we cut you down. Understand?”
The two men bobbed their heads up and down.
“Just to make sure,” Bass continued. “Lay down and put your faces in the dirt.”
The men complied.
“Let’s go, Bass,” Joseph said. “That rider’s gettin’ closer.”
They turned their horses, and in a fast run, started toward the canyon mouth. After a quarter mile, Bass looked over his shoulder. The three riders were chasing them. He saw a puff of white smoke, followed by the crack of a rifle. A puff of dirt was kicked up about fifty yards behind them.
“Hold up, Joseph,” he said, stopping his horse. “I think I need to let these boys know we don’t want to be followed.”
He turned his horse. Joseph stopped and turned with him. Bass withdrew his rifle from the scabbard and raised it, sighting on the horse of the lead rider.
I sure hate to have to do this,” he said, and squeezed the trigger.
There was a ‘crack’ and a puff of smoke, and a second or so later, the lead horse plunged to the ground, its rear rising over its front, and sending its rider flying over its head to land in a crumpled heap in the dirt. The other two riders immediately stopped, wheeled their horses, and beat a hasty retreat along their back trail.
“Think that fella broke his neck when he fell off his horse?” Joseph asked.
“I ain’t gon’ go ask him. ‘Sides, if he did, he deserves it. He was shootin’ at us for no reason.”
“Are we goin’ up in them hills to look for Dozier?”
“Yeah, but I don’t reckon he’s goin’ anywhere,” Bass said. “First thing we gon’ do is go to Muskogee and get a posse, to get these rustlers.”
“What if Dozier leaves his hideout while we’re chasin’ after rustlers?”
“Then, we start lookin’ for him again. I can’t let a buncha rustlers get away. What’s that sayin’—about a bird in the hand?”
“A rabbit in the snare is better than a deer on the other side of the ridge,” Joseph said.
“Whatever. In this case, a buncha rustlers we know where they at is better than three outlaws we ain’t seen yet. Now, let’s ride.”
Chapter 16.
It didn’t take them long to get to Muskogee, and within five hours had assembled a posse of twelve men, more than happy to help catch a bunch of thieving cattle rustlers, but even more impressed at the three-dollar-a-day fee Bass offered.
They set out immediately, pushing their horses hard to arrive back at the canyon before dusk.
When they were half a mile away from the entrance to the canyon, Bass halted the posse.
“Why we stoppin’, Deputy?” one man asked.
“They likely got guards agin,” Bass said. “And, after me and Joseph done made fools of the two they had before, they might have more ‘n two. So, we got to go in quiet. You men wait here, while me ‘n Joseph check it out.”
Bass and Joseph moved off the trail and walked their horses to a stand of birch and pine trees behind a low hill just before the entrance to the canyon. They tied the horses to small trees, took out several small lengths of strong cord that they kept in their saddle bags, and crept low around to the right and up onto the slope marking the beginning of the east wall. This put them behind and several feet above the spot where they’d seen the guards earlier, and as he’d suspected, the number of guards had been increased. Now, three men with rifles crouched behind a large bush, keeping a sharp eye on the trail coming from the southwest.
Quietly, they worked their way down the slope until they were only fifteen feet away from the men. Bass’s original plan had been to creep up behind them and order them to drop their weapons, a risky plan because if one of them got off a shot or shouted a warning the rest of the rustlers would be alerted. It would be necessary, however, to eliminate the guards for the rest of his plan to work.
Then, fortune smiled upon him.
One of the guards turned toward where Bass and Joseph were concealed behind a thick bush.
“I got to go take a leak,” he said. “Be right back.”
The man walked right past them without even looking down, until he was near a large pine tree that grew at a slight angle out of the hillside. He propped his rifle against the tree and began to relieve himself. Bass waited until he’d emptied his bladder and refastened his trousers before stepping up behind him.
“Keep your mouth shut and put your hands up,” he said quietly, as he placed the muzzle of his Colt to the back of the man’s neck.
Joseph walked up and retrieved the man’s rifle.
The stunned outlaw could only gape in astonishment at the two apparitions that had materialized out of the trees without making a sound. Before he could recover his composure, they used two of the cords to bind his hands and feet. Bass used the man’s own bandana as a gag, and left him propped against the tree. He mumbled muffled curses through his gag as they walked away, Joseph still holding his rifle.
Capturing the remaining two guards was even easier. Their attention was entirely on the trail entering the canyon, not the canyon wall behind them, and Bass and Joseph moved like a gentle breeze, making no sound, and leaving little evidence of their passage. They were behind the two men, their weapons against the small of their backs before the outlaws realized they were not alone.
The two were tied and gagged, after being forced to
walk back into the trees, where they were dumped in separate locations to keep them from coming up with a plan to free themselves.
“Okay, you go git the posse,” Bass said. “Then, we’ll git the rest of this gang.”
Joseph jogged off into the trees. Five minutes later, he was back at the head of the posse, leading Bass’s horse.
“Now,” said Bass. “Here’s what we gon’ do. Six of you go up the west side of the canyon.” He pointed out six of the men. “The other six go up the east side. Keep low and watch me and Joseph. We be ridin’ down here. When we see the rustlers, we’ll stop. You move in so you got ‘em in a cross fire, but don’t shoot less’n I give the word.”
The men nodded their understanding, dismounted and tied their horses, and then began making their way up and along the canyon walls.
Bass gave them enough time to start moving north, then turned to Joseph. “Okay, old friend. Let’s go do this.”
Joseph smiled. “If anyone else came up with a crazy plan like this, I would laugh at him. But, you have done even crazier things, so I think it will work.”
“’Course it’s gon’ work,” Bass said.
They followed the trail into the canyon. It widened out in some places and narrowed in others, but was easy to follow. Hooves of cattle and horses had churned up the earth, turning it into a sticky sea of mud in places where the trail crossed streams, and left piles of manure scattered about. Joseph stopped at one relatively dry spot, dismounted, and inspected the droppings.
“They just recently drove cattle through here, maybe three, four days ago,” he said. “This is still pretty fresh.”
Bass sniffed the air. “I think we pretty close, too,” he said.
Joseph remounted, and cocked his head in the direction they’d been traveling.
“You are right. I can hear the rumbling of a large herd. Maybe less than half mile ahead.”
They rode that half mile in vigilant silence, coming into an area where the canyon spread out into a large bowl, with few trees near the center, and a carpet of thick grass upon which now grazed nearly a hundred head of cattle being tended by four mounted men. Three more men sat at a campfire on a small rise off to the right.
The men at the campfire sprang to their feet and grabbed rifles upon sighting Bass and Joseph, and the four with the herd left those duties and rode to confront the two new arrivals.
Bass and Joseph stopped their horses and awaited the men, mounted and on foot, to arrive. When they did, strung out in a line in front of them, Bass sat, hunched in the saddle, his hands folded across the saddle horn, looking placidly down at them.
Two of the men from the fire, one with a dirty white bandage around his head, walked forward. Bass recognized the bandaged younger man as the one who had shot at them the day before.
“What you want?” the older man asked. He had his rifle at the waist, aimed up at Bass.
The younger man pointed his rifle at Joseph.
“These two hombres look familiar, Luke,” the younger man said. “Kinda like the hombres who shot my horse and got me throwed.”
“That true what my little brother said? Was you here yestiddy?”
“We was,” Bass said in a quiet voice that nonetheless carried across the distance to the men behind these two.
“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded. “You must want to die, comin’ back here after what you done.”
“No, I ain’t wantin’ to die. And, I don’t want you to have to die, either.” Bass pulled aside his jacket, revealing his badge. “I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, and I’m here to arrest you for stealin’ cattle. Now, I’d be obliged if you’d lay down your guns and come peaceable.”
The older man laughed, and looked over his shoulder at the six men behind him, all with rifles now pointed at Bass and Joseph.
“Here that? This here boy and his Injun done come in here all by they lonesome, and he wants us to give up.”
“More like they come to die,” the young man said.
“That right, Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves? You come to die?”
Bass reached up and lifted his hat, waving it once in the air. On the hillside to the east, six men, rifles aimed rose, and on the west, another six did the same. Bass put his hat back on, and pointed.
“No, I ain’t come to die,” he said quietly. “And, if you smart, you don’t have to die either.”
Chapter 17.
The rustlers wisely laid down their weapons. After paying off the posse men, Bass, with Joseph accompanying him, took the rustlers, hands tied behind their backs and legs roped together under their horses’ bellies, back to Fort Smith. After learning that the men were indeed wanted, and getting the jailer to help him write his report of the incident, he and Joseph went to find Marshal Fagan in his office.
“So, Bass, this is your favorite posse man,” Fagan said. “I heard about you Lone Tree. What I hear, the two of you work well together.”
“Yes, we are old friends,” Joseph said.
“Why are you back so soon, Bass?”
Bass explained about the rustlers, and informed the marshal that he and Joseph would be returning to the territory immediately. “I think I know where Dozier is holing up. I’m gon’ get him this time.”
“I don’t know, Bass. Don’t seem all that urgent to me.”
Bass told him about the rangers.
“Texas Rangers in Indian Territory? Damn,” Fagan said. “That could turn ugly real quick.”
“That’s why I think we need to get Dozier now,” Bass said.
“Okay, go ahead, but don’t take too long. Judge Parker hear about Texas Rangers violatin’ their jurisdiction by goin’ into Oklahoma, he’s apt to throw a conniption fit.”
“We git Dozier, and the rangers ain’t got no reason to go back ‘cross the river,” Bass said.
Fagan looked grim. “Well, what you waitin’ for? Go get that son of a bitch.”
Chapter 18.
“We almost had him,” Dozier said. “I could almost smell him, only him and that damn Injun had to go into the valley ‘stead of comin’ up here.”
“Heard they rounded up that whole gang, boss,” Garner said. “Without a shot bein’ fired. He got a posse from down to Muskogee to help him.”
Dozier had heard the stories, probably inflated with the telling, but even without the extras the local story tellers added it was a damn good story; the deputy was impressive. Going up against an armed band of rustlers, hard men if the stories were to be credited, with a posse made up of a bunch of inexperienced townsmen, and nabbing that gang without a shot being fired. Damn if it wasn’t the stuff of legends, he thought, and it made it all the more galling that that selfsame deputy was on his tail, but had failed to fall into the trap that he had, in his opinion, so elegantly set. Well, if elegance didn’t work, he’d have to just fall back on the old-fashioned method; he’d call the man out.
“I got a job for you, Hank,” he said.
Having gotten over the death of his comrade, helped immensely by the larger share of the bank proceeds that had come his way because of that death, Hank Garner was in a good mood.
“Sure, boss. What you want me to do.”
Dozier pulled the folder paper from his shirt pocket. He’d written the note in a fit of anger, right after hearing the news of Bass’s capture of the cattle rustlers.
“I want you to take this here note down to the deadline and put it where that damn deputy’s sure to see it,” he said. He handed the note to Garner.
Garner looked at the paper in his hand as if it was a scorpion.
“What’s it say, boss?”
Dozier laughed. The fool, he thought, could just as easily have read it, but he suspected that Garner knew, or had his suspicions, about how Harley Williams had really died, and was scared that the same might be in store for him. It wasn’t—for the moment—but, Dozier liked the feeling of control it gave him.
“It says he’s a yellow-belly who’s scared to face me, and i
f he ever comes back across the deadline, I’m donna shoot him down like a rabid dog.”
“Them’s some powerful words,” Garner said. “You think he’ll be too scairt to come back?”
“I don’t know. If he’s too scared, that means I don’t have to worry ‘bout him. Of course, I hope he does come. I want the pleasure of putting a bullet in his black hide, and watch his blood soak into the dirt.”
Garner folded the note and tucked it into his shirt. He stood. “You want me to wait ‘n see if he gets it?”
“Yeah, you do that. Just don’t get yourself caught.” Dozier laughed at the frightened look on Garner’s face.
Dozier had left notes for Bass at the deadline before, mostly because it was expected, and because it amused him to do so. Never, though, had he been so blunt of forceful as now, and he hoped this would be the note that Bass would respond to.
Chapter 19.
Fifty miles west of Fort Smith, well inside Indian Territory, a settlement had cropped up near the point known as the Deadline, that line the outlaws of the territory often dared the law to cross. The fifty or so residents, the population waxed and waned depending upon the season, had taking to calling the place Gethsemane, after the garden at the base of the Mount of Olives where Jesus is supposed to have prayed the night before his crucifixion. The name was thought appropriate because it would give lawmen heading west a chance to say a last prayer before venturing to almost certain death. After his fourth trip into Indian Territory, no one in Gethsemane had ever asked Bass Reeves if he wanted to pray.
Gethsemane wasn’t much. A few tents, and a couple of structures of poles and deer skin, pretty much completed the architecture. When the weather was good, the saloon was several barrels and crates placed on a square area where the grass had been beaten down, and the bartender held court from a wagon. Travelers stopping for a drink, or to get water for their horses, often doubled the town’s population.
