.44 Caliber Man

by J. T. Edson

  ‘He’s such a greenhorn!’ Jeanie mused. ‘Not that I care one way or another.’

  Conscious of the girl’s scrutiny, Colin made no attempt to address her. At first during the journey he had tried to talk with her, but the conversational attempts were received so coldly that he stopped them. Jeanie’s attitude hurt him more than he cared to admit, even to himself. However he gritted his teeth and promised silently to prove he was as much of a man as any of the Texans. The Dragoon hung at his side, but he was becoming less aware of it with each passing day. Not that he was allowed to forget it. Each evening on making camp, Dusty, Mark or the Kid would give him instruction in gun handling. Accuracy with the sights was no problem and he found himself able to plant his bullets close enough to where he wanted them at up to thirty yards range. Drawing and shooting by instinctive alignment would take longer to master, yet his teachers expressed satisfaction with his progress.

  Sitting relaxed in his bay gelding’s saddle, Colin looked around him. They were travelling across rolling country without as much as a set of wheel ruts to guide them. Yet Ma clearly knew where they were going, even though Colin could hardly tell one fold of land from another. Wondering if he would attain a similar skill if he remained in Texas, Colin turned his eyes towards where Mark Counter appeared on a distant rim. A yell from Jeanie jolted the young Scot out of his reverie.

  ‘Over there!’ the girl shouted, pointing to Colin’s right.

  Following the direction she indicated, he saw a horse coming from a clump of bushes. Colin had rarely seen such a fine animal and so stared at it with admiring gaze. Letting out a shrill whistling whinny, the horse ran forward. With its mane and tail flying in the breeze, it came closer. Snorts broke from the remuda and the bay under Colin fiddle-footed restlessly.

  ‘He’s after the remuda!’ Ma yelled. ‘Head him off, Colin!’

  Snatching the rope from his saddle, Colin urged his mount towards the stallion. Although the bay usually responded promptly to commands, it showed some reluctance to obey. Kicking its ribs, he started it moving. Behind him, Jeanie yelled something but Colin could not catch the words.

  Nearer thundered the stallion, until it seemed certain to collide with the bay. At the last moment, while the bay fought to turn away, the stallion swung aside. Seeing it start to go by, Colin flipped his rope out. Pure luck guided the noose, dropping over the stallion’s head and down its sleek neck. Remembering what Dusty had said the previous night when discussing roping, Colin knew he must secure his lariat before the noose snapped tight. Swift he threw a couple of turns of rope around the horn. Only just in time, for the rope snapped tight between the bay and stallion and tore from his grasp.

  Coming around the remuda to help drive off the stallion, Jeanie stared in amazement at what she saw. She also knew the danger of Colin’s actions. Jerking the Sharps carbine from its boot, she cut loose from the mare’s back and hoped that she would be in time to save the Scot from the results of his folly.

  The force of the stallion slamming to the end of the rope almost jerked the bay from its feet. Instantly the wild horse came around in a rearing, sky-pawing turn. Screaming in fury, it laid back its ears and bared its teeth. More experienced than its rider, the bay knew what to expect. As the stallion charged, the bay began a bucking, pitching evasion. Taken by surprise, Colin lost his seat and tumbled to the ground. Desperately he rolled over, hearing the stallion’s teeth chop together above him. The stamping forefeet missed him by inches and he continued to roll as the raging horse began to turn for another attack.

  Dropping to her left knee, Jeanie flung the carbine into the firing position. Raw anxiety gnawed at her, but she refused to let it fluster her. Making sure of her aim, she squeezed the trigger. Flying true, the heavy bullet struck and broke the stallion’s neck. Down it went in a kicking, thrashing pile close to where Colin stopped rolling.

  Jeanie had no time to congratulate herself on a good shot. Leaping to her feet, she ran to the mare. Already the remuda had started to flee, fear of the stallion combining with the sound of the shot to set them going. Catching hold of the saddle-horn, she swung afork her horse and sent it bounding after them. Reaction set in as she rode and her temper rose to boiling point at the thought of Colin’s behavior. Once more the Scot’s stupidity was making trouble:

  Bringing the wagon to a halt, Ma leapt agilely off the box. Followed by April, she dashed across to where Colin sat up and looked around in a dazed manner.

  ‘Are you all right?’ April asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Colin answered.

  ‘You won’t be if you pull another fool trick like that,’ Ma warned. ‘If Jeanie had moved a mite slower—’

  ‘Aye!’ Colin said soberly.

  ‘Come on,’ Ma ordered as the Scot stood up. ‘Get your rope off the stallion and we’ll catch up to the remuda.’

  Having seen the trouble, Dusty Fog turned his horse and headed to help Jeanie. The huge paint stallion he sat could run like a racehorse and he encouraged it to do so. On the other side of the wagon, Mark Counter galloped his great blood bay stud-horse inwards. Converging on the remuda before it had time to scatter, the men brought it to a circling halt. Jeanie boiled up on her mare and the cowhands could see she was in a blazing temper.

  ‘Did you see it?’ she demanded. ‘Did you see what that loco Scotch son-of-a-bitch pulled? He roped that mustang stallion!’

  ‘The hell he did,’ Dusty grinned. ‘That Colin’s got guts.’

  ‘Guts!’ Jeanie yelped. ‘He’s loco. Any kid’d know better than try roping a wild stallion when it came after the remuda. Damned if I know where he keeps his brains.’

  ‘He’s new to this game, Jeanie,’ Dusty pointed out.

  ‘And he’s not likely to grow much older,’ the girl snorted, ‘happen that’s the way he’s going to act.’

  ‘How’d you reckon Jeanie’d work out was she fresh arrived in Scotland, Dusty?’ Mark inquired.

  ‘Better than he’s doing out here!’ Jeanie replied hotly. ‘You men’re all alike, way you stand together.’

  With that she swung her mare around and galloped towards the wagon. Colin rode out to meet her, after removing his rope from the dead stallion’s neck.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Jeanie—’ he began.

  ‘I’d’ve done it for anybody!’ the girl snorted and went by him. Halting her horse alongside the wagon, she indicated the dead animal. ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ma answered. ‘Good hoss.’

  ‘Real good,’ Jeanie admitted.

  ‘And Colin tried to catch it for you,’ April went on. ‘He’s got guts enough to try, all he needs now is somebody to tell him what’s right and wrong.’

  A slight frown creased Jeanie’s brow as she thought over the blonde’s words. Maybe Colin had acted hastily; but, as April said, he had had the guts to try. If he did want to learn the mustanging business, it was only hospitable to help him. With Kenny out of the game, it fell on Jeanie to do the honors. Being Jeanie, she could not bring herself to display openly a change of mind.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said and reined the mare around to ride after the remuda.

  ‘You’ve got her thinking,’ Ma grinned. ‘Good thing that. It’s time she eased off a mite on Colin. Like you’d know, you can ride a feller so long afore he rides away from you.’

  ‘Are you match-making, Ma?’ April asked with a smile.

  ‘Me?’ Ma gasped. ‘As if I’d do a thing like that.’

  Shaking his head sadly, Colin joined Dusty and Mark at the remuda. He felt, in view of Jeanie’s attitude, that some explanation of his actions was necessary.

  ‘I thought if I roped that horse Miss Jeanie would be pleased,’ Colin told the Texans. ‘No matter what I do, it seems to go wrong.’

  ‘I’d worry about that,’ Dusty replied. ‘Only I figure you’ve got sense enough to learn from your mistakes. There’s one thing you can’t do and that’s rope a wild stallion when it’s acting like that one. It’s
got its mind dead set on one thing—’

  ‘How’d you like it if you’d got a belly full of love, was set to go roosting with some pretty lil gal and somebody stopped you?’ Mark interrupted. ‘You’d be some riled, just like the stallion, likely.’

  ‘Any time one comes at the remuda, it’s hot after a mare,’ Dusty went on. ‘If you rope it, it’ll turn on you and a bullet’s all that’ll stop it.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Colin admitted. ‘No stallion back home ever acted that way.’

  ‘There’s a big difference,’ Dusty pointed out. ‘These mustangs’re wild animals, not somebody’s strays. You interfere with near on any wild critter and it’ll fight back.’

  ‘Mind that next time, amigo,’ Mark continued. ‘And don’t worry about this time. I’ll go along with Dusty, you’re smart enough to learn from your mistakes.’

  At that moment Jeanie returned and the Texans left to resume their flanking guard. For a time the girl and Colin rode in silence. Then Jeanie’s sense of fair play and humor took over and she chuckled. Luckily Colin realized that she was laughing with, not at, him and took it in a good spirit. By the time the party made camp for the night, Jeanie and Colin were on good terms. For the remainder of the day’s journey she had answered his questions on things they saw, asked about conditions in Scotland and explained something of the work ahead.

  The Kid rode into the camp area soon after dark. After caring for his wild-looking, magnificent white stallion— brought to Fort Sawyer along with the cattle—he announced that there was still no sign of pursuit. However he dismissed as unlikely Colin’s suggestion that the Flores brothers had given up the idea of revenge.

  ‘Could be they haven’t got back to Fort Sawyer and learned we’re gone yet,’ the Kid guessed. ‘One thing you can bet on, amigo. Once they know we’ve pulled out, they’ll come looking and won’t rest until they find you.’

  In which the Kid proved a pretty fair judge of the situation, although wrong in a few small details.

  Pushed hard by the cavalry patrol, the Flores gang had only that night returned to their hideout on Onion Creek. At about the same time as the Kid was giving his views on the situation, Matteo Flores walked into the firelight’s glow. Seated with his back to the wall of the small cave in which the remains of the gang hid, Tiburcio watched his brother clean the blade of the machete on his shirtsleeve.

  ‘I caught Ramon sneaking off,’ Matteo explained, sheathing the long-bladed weapon and looking at the five worried faces in the background. ‘He’s changed his mind about leaving.’

  During the pursuit, two wounded men had been killed by the brothers. Since then there had been a growing restlessness among the rest of the gang. Several of the bandidos had managed to slip away. In fact only six remained with the brothers on their return to Onion Creek. It seemed that one of those chose to desert.

  ‘Do any more of you want to go?’ Tiburcio demanded, coming to his feet.

  Only for a moment did the five bandidos hesitate with their reply. The brothers stood in a menacing attitude blocking the only .way out of the cave. If there was any refusal to stay, its maker would die before he finished speaking. So a muted, sullen chorus of ‘No’ echoed hollowly from the men.

  ‘That’s better,’ Tiburcio growled and sank on to his haunches again. ‘What did you learn, Matteo?’

  While his brother had come to Onion Creek and set up camp, Matteo went into the Mexican quarter of Fort Sawyer after information.

  ‘Things are going badly for us,’ Matteo answered. ‘Hogan’s been arrested by the Army and already the peons are saying we’re finished.’

  ‘We’ll show them different when we get some more men,’ Tiburcio promised.

  ‘Only we won’t get them unless we finish the bastard who killed our brothers and everybody who helped him,’ Matteo pointed out.

  ‘Is he still in town?’

  ‘No. There’s a wagon and horses behind the house, but not the ones we saw when we made the attack. They’ve gone.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Mustanging. They took the man in the skirt and the blonde woman from the Black Bear with them.’

  ‘Do you know where they went?’ Tiburcio asked.

  ‘I asked around,’ Matteo answered. ‘Nobody knows for sure. One girl said that the Schell family do most of their hunting along the Ronde River.’

  ‘It’s a start,’ Tiburcio admitted. ‘And we have to make one somewhere. We’ll never get men to join us until we’ve killed the man in the skirt.’

  ‘I want him,’ Matteo snarled. ‘The bastard shot my horse. I’ll tear his guts out for that.’

  ‘Well have to find him first,’ Tiburcio reminded. ‘Let’s sleep now and then start for the Ronde River country in the morning.’

  At dawn, the gang set out. With their horses tired by the exertions of the past few days, Tiburcio knew that they could not hope to catch up to the Schell party as long as it kept moving. Trying to find and follow their tracks would also be too slow a process for him. That point was emphasized when another of the gang slipped away on the second night out of Onion Creek. Taking the warning, Tiburcio made the remaining four responsible for each other. He threatened to shoot any man who tried to desert and kill those left behind should one succeed in departing while he and Matteo slept. That prevented any further drain on their numbers. Going in a straight line for the lower reaches of the Ronde River, Tiburcio turned north and headed up-stream. In that way they ought to strike their quarry’s tracks and be led to it.

  Mile after mile fell behind them without a sign of the Schell party. Even Matteo’s patience was wearing thin, while Tiburcio grew more morose and dangerous by the day. None of the gang showed any pleasure at the sight of a small, ruined, deserted village.

  ‘We’ll rest up here for a couple of days,’ Tiburcio decided, looking at the two lines of tumble-down adobe shacks and the roofless wreck of a small church. ‘There might be food and, anyway, the horses need the rest.’

  Hiding their horses in the buildings, the men searched the village without finding anything edible or worth stealing. However they decided to stay on, for they could do some hunting to replenish their supply of meat. Towards nightfall, Matteo rose and picked up his Spencer rifle. Before he left the shack, he halted and peered through the window.

  ‘A rider’s coming,’ he announced. ‘One man. A mestenero from the look of him.’

  Joining his brother, Tiburcio watched the man draw nearer. Big, thickset, he slouched in the saddle of a bay gelding. He rode with his head bent forward, the brim of the sombrero hiding his face. A serape hung across his shoulders, and he wore vaquero dress, with a revolver and knife at his belt. When the brothers stepped from the shack, the bay snorted. Jerking erect, the man started to grab at his gun but shot his hands into the air at the sight of the lined weapons. His surly, coarse face had a split, swollen lip and discolored eye.

  ‘I’m only a poor m—’ he began.

  ‘Who do you work for, mestenero?’ Tiburcio interrupted.

  ‘Nobody. I worked for the Schells until a son-of-a-whore wearing a skirt attacked me and ran me off.’

  The words saved the man’s life. Holstering his gun, Tiburcio gave a friendly chuckle and waved a hand towards the shack. ‘Get down, mestenero. If you hate the man in the skirt, you are among friends.’

  ‘Hate the bastard!’ the man spat out. ‘I’ll tear his heart out and leave it for the buzzards.’

  ‘Will you show us where their camp is?’ Matteo demanded.

  ‘I would,’ the mestenero answered. ‘Only I don’t think there’ll be any need.’

  ‘Why not?’ Tiburcio growled.

  ‘I’ve been hid in a clump of mesquite most of the day with a large band of Indians making medicine not half a mile from me.’

  ‘Indians?’ Tiburcio breathed.

  ‘Renegade Tejas mostly, maybe a hundred or more of them,’ the mestenero elaborated. ‘From the way they were headed when they rode off, they’ll run r
ight into the Schells’ camp.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Not much farther now,’ Ma commented as the men gathered by the wagon for the noon meal on the seventh day out from Fort Sawyer. ‘Our boys’ll be camped down on the Owl Fork.’

  ‘How about me going on ahead, Ma?’ Jeanie suggested. ‘I’ve got to tell Fernàn that he’s a father—again.’

  ‘Go to it,’ Ma smiled.

  ‘Why’n’t you come along, Colin?’ the girl continued and eyed the three Texans at the fire with mock disgust. ‘It’s time these OD Connected yahoos did some work instead of just riding the rims.’

  ‘Aye, that it is,’ Colin agreed. ‘How about it, Ma? I may be able to shoot another elk or something on the way.’

  ‘Go to it,’ Ma grinned. ‘I reckon Dusty and Mark can handle the remuda.’

  ‘Why don’t you come and help us, April?’ Mark inquired.

  ‘You know what you can do with your horses,’ the blonde snorted. ‘I’m a big city gal and I just can’t wait to get back to one.’

  ‘Now that’s a pity,’ Ma chuckled. ‘I was going to ask you to take on as cook for the outfit.’

  Since leaving Fort Sawyer, April had handled the cooking to everybody’s satisfaction. It had been several years since she prepared food in such primitive conditions, but she still remembered the best ways of doing so. However her reply to Ma’s offer was blunt, to the point and reaffirmed her desire to return to her old way of life as soon as possible.

  Letting Jeanie carry his Henry in the mare’s saddleboot, Colin picked up his powerful double-barreled rifle. Twice he had used the heavy weapon to bring down game, a buffalo bull and an elk falling to it. With the rifle resting on his knees, he rode away from the camp at the girl’s side.

  They saw no game on the journey and at last Jeanie reined in her horse on a rim. Halting at her side, Colin looked down at the mestenero’s camp. It lay in the hollow of a U-shaped bend in a wide stream. At the bottom of the bend was a large corral with a number of horses in it. Beyond the corral stood a wagon, with a line of horses picketed along from it. Twenty-five or so Mexicans were gathered around a fire, squatting on their haunches and eating a meal served by a fat, jovial cook.