JL Tate, Texas Ranger

by Lou Bradshaw

  Taking a few burning sticks, I made a poor excuse for a torch. Then I walked around the rocks, until I found one that looked like a sagging rock or a blanket. I called her name, and to my great relief she answered. Lowering the blanket, I could see by her face, that she was as relieved as I was.

  “Is it over? Is everyone all right… how are Papa and Carson?”

  “Everyone is breathing and walking. Some may be a little banged up but, I don’t think there’s anyone seriously hurt.” I told her as I pulled her to her feet. She clung to my right arm until we were at the fire, and then she saw her father sitting there with a bloody rag to his head. She was immediately on her knees beside him trying to take the rag from him so she could see how bad he was hurt.

  Morgan was boiling water to clean Clayton’s wound, and Blaze was looking over a dead bandit… the one I shot at point blank range… the last man shot. Picking up the dead man’s pistol, I walked back to the fire, leaned his rifle against a stone, and checked the loads in the six-gun. Holding it where he could get the best light, he spun the cylinder. It was an old gun, but it was loaded, that was all he cared about at the moment. He shoved it into his empty holster and reached for his rifle.

  I was a half second quicker and snatched it up before he was even close. I had grabbed it by the barrel and had my suspicions confirmed. It was cold. My own rifle in my other hand was still warm from firing five or six shots before it was knocked from my hand. Blaze lunged, and I stepped back. Half turning, I tossed the rifle to Spade, who caught it in mid air.

  Carson looked at me for instructions and I said, “You think that rifle has been fired within the last ten minutes?”

  He felt the barrel and then moved his hand to the action. Next he worked the lever opening the chamber and smelled it. “This rifle hasn’t been fired in days.” Carson told us.

  “What are you sayin’, Tate?” Burley asked.

  “I’m sayin’ this cheap back shootin’ worm didn’t have the guts to fire his rifle, he didn’t want to draw fire to his position up in the rocks. If those banditos had killed us all, they’d never find him, unless they stuck around till daylight… then he’d have to make a fight of it. Burley, this man’s pure yellow.”

  “But I know of four men he killed in prison.”

  “How many of them knew it was coming?” There was no reply. “That’s what I thought.”

  Burley sat looking at Blaze with poison in his eyes. He wanted to put a bullet in Tom Blaze’s heart and leave his body for the buzzards. But he couldn’t show his daughter what he was like in the old days. There was a peace between them that he wanted to preserve and hold onto. If he shot Blaze down in cold blood as he wanted, Emma would never feel the same about him again. He didn’t want to lose what he had.

  Emma had been wrapping a bandage around the scalp wound on her father’s head. She stopped and waited. He knew she was waiting to see what kind of man her father really was.

  Blaze hadn’t taken his eye off me while we all waited. The hatred on his face was almost a living thing. It had gone beyond simply disliking me and beyond hating me. Tom Blaze had reached a new level of loath. And no doubt, he considered it my fault for not letting him shoot me in the back a few days ago. He was likely thinking that his time was up, and if he heard any movement or the drawing clicking of a hammer, his last act would be to kill me.

  “You’ve got two minutes to get out of camp, Tom… Get your horse and go… take only your horse and saddle, but be gone in two minutes or I’ll pull the trigger myself.” Clayton told him. Emma continued bandaging her father’s wound.

  ‘What about my rifle… I’ll need that.”

  “If there’s a rifle in your saddle boot then take it. If not, you’ve got a minute and fifty seconds left… a minute and forty eight seconds.” Blaze grabbed a handful of sticks from the fire and headed for his horse and saddle.

  “You shoulda kilt him Burley.” Morgan voiced his opinion.

  “Those are the old ways, Morgan. Those days are gone.” Clayton told him.

  Morgan, Carson, and I went about picking up the weapons of the fallen bandits and checking to see if any of them could be helped. The weapons were mostly single shot carbines and rusty old revolvers. All of which, we busted up on the rocks. We heard Blaze ride off, hopefully never to be seen again… but I wasn’t at all sure of it.

  Checking for bodies we found five men down. Three were dead and two were still alive. One man never regained consciousness and died within the hour. The other had a bullet in his belly and was taking a long time to die. We carried him to the fire and I stayed with him through the rest of the night. Looking past the blood and his pain wracked face; I saw that he was a young man, not more than a grown boy. I couldn’t tell if he had ever had a razor to his face.

  His clothes were homemade and his sandals were well worn. He looked like he should be hoeing corn instead of riding with banditos. His dreams of adventure and wealth were gone. Was that it, or was he just an unfortunate soul forced into a life of crime to survive? I sat by the fire trying to bring him what little comfort as I could, but there really wasn’t much I could do but give him a little water now and then. He died in the wee hours clutching a crude wooden cross that hung by a piece of rawhide around his neck. I covered him with one of Blaze’s blankets.

  He’d wait until morning when we would bury all five together in a shallow grave covered with rocks….At least his pain was gone. I walked away from the fire and took a look around the camp. I wasn’t expecting any more trouble, but I needed to move, so I checked on the camp.

  Looking up at the mountain several miles away, it was hulking and black against the sky, and then something caught my eye. Off to the northern flank I could see a pinpoint of yellow light… Now what the hell was that?

  Chapter 17

  Waking Carson, I got past the abuse he was starting to inflict on me, but he soon realized that I had something important to share with him. Once his eyes were focused, he had no trouble spotting the tiny flicker. And then it went dark.

  “Whata ya think…a signal maybe?” I asked.

  He thought for a second or two and said, “Could be… I’ll take a ride over that way and have a look.” I offered to go, but Carson was better at reading sign than I was, and this was his assignment. In other words, he was management… I was labor.

  He rode out slow and easy, so as to not wake the others. I went ahead and dragged the body of the young bandito over with the others. Then I built up the fire in preparation for breakfast. With the coming of the gray predawn light, I started coffee and got ready to wake the others, the few who were left.

  Clayton was the first to crawl out of his blankets. He looked at where the young bandit had lain and didn’t ask for a report. “I’ll get the others started.” He said.

  A few minutes later, he came back to the fire and asked if I’d seen Carson. So I told him about the light on the mountain, and that he had gone over to have a look.

  “Is he any good at readin’ sign?”

  “He’s no Apache, but he can read ‘em better than most white men. I’m above average, but he’s head and shoulders over me.”

  “Learn somethin’ every day.” Was all he said while pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  About a half hour after sunup, Carson rode back into camp. Swinging down, he loosened the cinch but left his horse saddled and came to the fire. Morgan was finishing the piling of stones on the grave of the five bandits, and Emma had some business of her own. So Burley Clayton and I were the only ones at the fire to greet him.

  “Three men lit the fire, but they were joined by our friend Blaze. They left together. I knew the tracks of Blaze’s horse but not the others. I found a bloodied rag half burned, and I’m thinkin’ it’s the Drummond outfit. I got a bullet into one of them when they came down off that ridge… I’m just speculatin’… it could be another bunch. They all rode off together, but I didn’t follow. I was too anxious to get back for breakfast.”

 
I caught the humor, but all Clayton could say was “Damnation!”

  About that time, Emma appeared looking fresher and lovelier than she reasonably had a right to under the conditions she’d been living with for the past couple of weeks.

  “Don’t say nothin’ to Emma about it, till I can give it some thought.” Clayton cautioned us, and we both nodded our agreement.

  “Good mornin’ Miss Emma…You look bright as a new penny this mornin’.” Carson said between bites.

  “Good morning, Mister Carson. You’re out early this morning.”

  “Yess’m…. I went out this morning to do some courtin’, but the lovely young señorita lady never showed up, so I come back to drown my sorrows with Tater’s coffee.”

  “Mister Carson, you’re such a caution.” She said as she snatched a piece of bacon from his plate… ‘Tater’ indeed… I’ll have to remember that.” She walked away giggling and mumbling about potatoes.

  “Thanks a lot, Carson” I growled, as he cleaned up the rest of the bacon and fryin’ pan bread.

  “Might as well get ready to move out.” Burley said as he tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire.

  When Clayton was out of ear shot, Spade told me, “Scoutin’ around where they had been, I found those three distinct sets of boot prints, but casting a wider loop, I found where another horse had been tied in the trees… a mare. I could tell by the way she relieved herself. I also found where the rider had worked his way up close enough to the fire to hear what was goin’ on… looks like someone else is in this game.”

  It didn’t take long to break camp and get saddled. Bridger’s horse had been tagging along with the others, and three of the bandit’s horses had attached themselves to our bunch. I stripped them and gave them their freedom. It took a few whacks across their rumps, but they finally got the idea and went looking for new friends.

  Crossing the Rio Grande here wasn’t near the adventure it had been up in the gorge country of New Mexico. Clayton led off once we were across, and we headed right for those low lying hills he’d been looking at the day before.

  It was my first incursion into Chihuahua, and I couldn’t get over the difference a river made. It was almost like going to another world. The landscape was much dryer and sandier more desert like. I’d heard oldtimers talk about trails, which would have a gentle shower on one side and a raging storm on the other. Of course, I’d never put much stock in most of what old timers said, but I could see it here.

  As we got closer to those hills, I could see some sparse vegetation, but there wasn’t anything of any substance. I figured goats could live there or maybe sheep, but you sure couldn’t raise many cows there. All the while we were riding; Clayton was looking for his landmarks. We had crossed several dry creek beds of no significant size, and then we came upon one that you could have put the others in and still had room for a saloon and a courthouse… it was a big one.

  From the look of it, I figured it had at one point been a bend in the Rio Grande and got pinched off to form a horseshoe lake. Well the lake part was long gone but the horseshoe gully was still there. We worked our way down the bank and into a cove.

  “We’ll stop here.” Burley said.

  “It’s still pretty early, Papa. You don’t have to stop for my account…. It’s barely past noon.” Emma told him.

  Her father was quiet for a long half minute then said. “No, Honey, it’s not on your account. This is where you, Carson and Tate will stay until I get back.”

  We were all stunned into silence, until Emma asked, “Are we there?”

  “Not quite, but close… Morgan and I will take the mules and go on from here…. We’ll leave in about an hour and be back in the morning… There’s some rough country ahead and there will be no time for rest.”

  “But, Papa…”

  “Not this time, my dear… it’s too rough and too dangerous. You’ll be safe here with these fine young fellas.”

  She turned and walked away pouting. Clayton led Spade and me off a ways and told us, “I should be back shortly after daybreak tomorrow. Be ready to travel, if I’m not back by sunup tomorrow, get her to the Ranger station in El Paso, and tell them you can lead them to a Confederate gold shipment from the end of the War. Tell them that she should get the reward…minus what I owe you two.”

  “Then you two can track us to the gold, but you wait any longer than two or three days and there won’t be a trail to follow. The wind blows something fierce where we’re goin’… I’m countin’ on you boys to take care of my little girl if I don’t make it back.”

  We agreed and it was settled. As we walked away, all I could think of was how funny it was that we would be going into the Ranger station and reporting to ourselves. Spade must have been thinking the same thing because it was all he could do to keep from snickering.

  The mules were watered from the skins we’d filled back at the river, and two skins were left with us as well as our canteens. And after an hour’s rest, Burley and Morgan went up the other bank of that old riverbed. Emma got over her sulkiness and gave her father a good send off. If where he was going was very deep in those hills, he did the right thing to leave her here.

  Emma was still for quite a while, and her cheeks were often shiny with a tear or two, but she was a tough young woman and I felt sure she’d be all right no matter what. I could give Burley credit for many things, but choosing a defensive camp site wasn’t one of his strengths. I could tell Carson wasn’t crazy about it either.

  Being cooped up in a small cove where you can’t see or hear what might be coming at you was not my idea of security. He was probably thinking of Emma’s comfort with the shade from above, but he hadn’t given much thought of how to defend that shaded hole.

  While I was busy grousing about it, Carson was up on the near bank looking for something better, so I went to the far bank to have a look. While I was riding up and down the bank, Emma rode up to join me… I suppose she might have thought we had deserted her, but I doubt she took that thought seriously. I was pretty certain she felt she could count on me and Carson. But she really didn’t know us, so I’m sure there was room for a little niggling doubt.

  “What are you doing up here? Aren’t we supposed to camp down there?”

  “Well… that’s what your daddy wanted, because there was shade down there, but it’s almost impossible to defend. We’ve been attacked once, and we had good field position, so we came out safe, well almost. But if they come back, and we’re down there… they can pick us off like target practice. I figure sooner or later someone’s gonna fetch my hide, but I want to make them earn it.”

  She didn’t say anything, I reckoned she didn’t want to have to defend Burley’s choice of sites, and she knew I was right. So saying nothing was the best remark. We rode south about a half a mile, and then we turned back. We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards past where we’d come up the bank, when she pointed and said, “Look, Tater… oop, I mean Truman.”

  I followed her finger to a pile of rocks, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see her covering her mouth with a handful of reins trying to hide a tickled grin…. There was nothin’ I could do about that, so I concentrated on what she was trying to show me. Carson was coming up the bank behind us, so we all rode there together.

  The closer we got the better I liked it, and I could tell that Carson favored it too. It had been used as a defensive position long before. The pile of rocks was roughly twenty yards across with an opening on the north end big enough to bring a horse through. Ancient ash and long cold charcoal still showed through the layers of sand where their fires had been. The whole thing formed a fortified circle. Men had created the fortress by piling rocks for breastwork. Inside the circle the ground was several feet deeper, which probably meant a waterhole at one time. Who would go to all the work of making a fortress if they were under attack?

  The army was the only answer I could come up with. After poking around, and finding no shell casings, I began to
think it was an old battle site. But I had no idea how old it really was until I found a brass Spanish helmet. It was smashed and battered, but there was no mistaking what it was. Even with those old muzzle loading rifles, a few men could hold the attackers out of arrow range while the work could be done.

  We were close enough to watch for Burley and Morgan to the south, and we could see the vast plain to the east, north, and west. Leaving Emma there, Carson and I went back to get the rest of our goods at the original site in the riverbed.

  Chapter 18

  It didn’t take much more than a few short poles driven into the ground and a blanket tied to them, to rig an adequate shade to keep tender young flesh from blistering. Although over the past few weeks, Emma’s complexion had changed from fragile porcelain white to a healthy golden hue. She was getting tougher by the day, but she still kept the aura of being one hundred percent female.

  Carson gave Emma the Winchester that Blaze wasn’t allowed to take with him, so while he was giving her instructions on how to use it, I climbed up on the rocks and kept watch. I didn’t know what that other rider I had learned about meant. It could be that more than Drummond’s bunch was after the gold. It could be that some pilgrim stumbled onto the fire and decided he didn’t like the looks of that outfit. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to let my guard down.

  Standing there in a little nest maybe six or eight feet above the center of the fortress, I could see almost forever. And what I saw, was what I had been expecting…dust. It was several miles away and following our trail. The best I could tell, it was only one rider and he was coming fast enough to kick up dust but not much. The wind was coming from the north, and he was riding west, so the dust was trailing to the south.

  When I was able to separate the dust from the rider’s actual position, I was able to see beyond him and found a larger plume several miles or more behind him. I gave Carson the news and continued watching. The rider came on in a casual manner, so I took it that he was scouting for those who followed.