Cowboy

by Jerry D. Young

Craig had Josh make several fancy tool worked leather slings for the fancy guns, like the fünfling. Also a belt slide ammunition carrier for it, to hold extra 12-gauge, .375 H&H Magnum, .30-’06, and .22 Hornet rounds.

  With pigskin from the previous year’s butchering, Josh made Craig another set of gauntlets and two pairs of work gloves. The family kept all the skins of the game they took, so Josh was able to make two pairs of warm rabbit fur lined gloves for Craig.

  As the winter wore on, Josh, with some help from Crazy Joe, made Craig two sets of boots. One pair was shotgun style boots with cavalry toes. The other pair was lined with sheepskin Josh got from a neighboring farm, with Craig doing a trade for the skins.

  Since Craig did almost as much walking as he did riding at times, the boots were soled with used tire tread. Even though it wasn’t the best for riding, since Craig’s saddles both had tapaderos to keep the rider’s feet from going too far through the stirrup, he opted for the better traction when afoot.

  One day when Craig was in the bunkhouse, carefully mending some of his clothing Josh came in to get him and saw what he was doing. When Craig looked up he noticed Josh’s face turn slightly pink when he spoke. “You know, Craig, I know someone that does repairs and even makes new clothes from fabric she makes herself.”

  “Really?” Craig asked, amused at Josh’s sudden shyness.

  “Yes. Her family does lots of stuff the old ways. Lola told me they got to the museum first and got a bunch of tools and stuff that the pioneers had used to make their own stuff.”

  “You kind of like her, I’m thinking,” Craig teased Josh.

  “Well… Yeah… But…”

  “Perhaps you could take me over and introduce me. I wouldn’t mind getting some new clothes, and setting up a trading partner for the Retreat back home.”

  “Sure! Just whenever you say!”

  “Let’s wait for the snow to stop for a bit,” Craig said, rather dryly, noting the eagerness in Josh to go visit a woman he obviously had feelings for.

  “Oh, well… Yes. Of course.” Josh turned to leave, but remembered what he’d come in for in the first place. “Need you to help Aaron move some hay for the stock.”

  “Sure thing,” Craig said, putting away his sewing. He put on his Drover’s coat, with the lining in it, slapped the Rogue River hat on his head and cinched up the chin strap to keep it on his head in the wind. His work gloves were already in a pocket of the coat.

  When spring finally arrived, after the hard winter, Mark convinced Craig to stay on a few more weeks to help get the spring ground work done. Craig couldn’t refuse and put off his trip down to find the rest of the cannibals.

  But three weeks later, the horses all a bit fat and sassy, about like Craig was feeling, he headed south once again, a little lighter of trade goods, but well clothed, equipped, and supplied.

  He felt a pang of guilt when he ran across a small town that had been hit by raiders just the week before. But he probably had helped more people by getting Mark’s farm going to supply food for people than he might have saved. And that was a big if.

  The people of the town gave him all the information they had on the group of raiders. One of the things they told him was that though there were fewer of them than in the past, they’d been even more vicious in their attack. It was only whispered that they might be cannibals. Craig was pretty sure it was the group he was looking for.

  He got on their track, which wasn’t that difficult, despite the fact that they made rudimentary efforts to conceal it. It lead him straight back to the town he’d been at before. His heart as cold as the winter had been, Craig picked up where he left off the previous fall, sneaking into town in the early evening, looking for the members of the gang.

  The first three times it was easy and he managed to kill half a dozen of the gang and wound at least that many more. But he got careless and paid a price. The bullet holes in the Drover’s coat were matched by a pair in his left arm. Fortunately the round had been a small caliber jacketed pistol bullet that missed the bone in his upper arm. He doctored himself up and laid low for several weeks, though he continued to watch the main road into and out of town.

  The continued surveillance paid off. A small convoy left the town one day and headed north. He got on Clyde and followed at a distance, on the watch for an ambush. He carried the M14E2 across the saddle horn, at the ready. Fretting a little at leaving his camp for such a long time, though the horses were in a rope corral now and could get to water and graze a little bit, Craig continued to follow until the group stopped early in the afternoon.

  Craig waited until their camp was set up. He watched the process carefully. There were no women or children, and every one of the men was heavily armed. Still not willing to just open fire on the camp, Craig set up the M14E3 in the fading light and then hollered to the camp. “I’m here to kill some cannibals. Anyone that isn’t has two minutes to come out with your hands up.”

  Pretty sure that no one would come or that the group would wait for two minutes to do anything, Craig took up the slack on the trigger.

  Sure enough, the words were barely out of his mouth when the gang members started shooting. Only one was firing anywhere close to where Craig was lying prone, one 100-round magazine in the auto-rifle and another sitting ready. He raked the camp with the auto-rifle, using the entire 100-rounds in a series of short bursts.

  As he was reloading, the return fire from the camp starting to come close, Craig heard a sound behind him and then a gunshot at close range. Either Craig had missed seeing a guard circling the camp, or the man had managed to locate Craig and circled around behind him. Either way, it was very fortunate that the man was both scared, and a horrible shot to start with. The first round missed Craig, hitting the ground right by his cheek.

  Craig rolled away from the M14E2, grabbing the Calico where it lay beside him. On his back, Craig fired a long burst from the Calico up into the man’s center of mass. The guy got off another shot, but it went Craig knew not where. It was only some time later that Craig found the bullet hole in the stock of the M14E2.

  The man fell heavily, half on Craig. Craig shoved him off, holstered the Calico, and picked up the rifle. There were survivors in the camp and they knew where he was now. At least approximately, at first.

  Craig laid down some covering fire with the remaining rounds in the drum, causing the rest of the gang to take to the ground. He shoulder slung the rifle and took the Calico out again, running in a curved path away from and slightly around the camp.

  Deciding not to press his luck any more than he already had, Craig kept going as the night darkness deepened. Taking a circuitous route back to the well-hidden Clyde, Craig headed back to his camp. The horses were glad to see him and he spent a bit of time with them as a sort of apology for having been gone so long.

  He took up a position outside the camp, and settled down to doze on and off the rest of the night, on the slim possibility that one or more of the gang had followed him back in the dark. Stiff and sore the next morning, Craig took care of the horses, packed up and changed camp locations.

  Waiting another day to investigate, Craig finally went back to the site of the ambush. All three vehicles were there, out of commission until some work was done. Craig had intentionally disabled them, but did so with the idea of getting them running again sometime so the town would have them to use.

  Besides the vehicles and remains of the camp, there were eight dead bodies, including the one at the edge of the camp clearing that had almost got Craig. The bodies had already been stripped of anything useful, including all the footwear and some of the clothes. The gang members that survived hadn’t bothered to even try to bury the bodies and they had suffered severe depredation by wild animals.

  Craig took up his vantage point overlooking the road, doubting if he’d be able to do another attack like he’d done. To his great surprise, a week after the attack, Craig saw someone walking down the middle of the road, carrying a white piece of cloth
tied to a broom handle.

  Following the man’s progress through the binoculars, Craig kept checking the man’s back trail for possible ambushers. Craig hurriedly shifted position, to get to the edge of the road that was just around a bend in the road.

  Craig thought for a moment the guy was going to have a heart attack when Craig softly said, “You looking for me?” Craig was behind a tree, his eyes shifting from the man to the bend in the road.

  “If you aren’t alone, you’d better just turn around and go. I won’t kill you under a white flag, but if I’m ambushed, you’ll be the first to go, white flag or not.”

  The man didn’t move. “I’m alone. I promise. Can I put my hands down?” He’d lifted them automatically when Craig had spoken.

  “Keep them where I can see them. Now what do you want?”

  “We want to help you,” said the man. “I’m Walt Gruber. Some of the honest folks in town want the raiders out of our town, but we haven’t been able to do anything but get killed trying. With your help…”

  Craig cut him off. “Why should I help? You know they are raiders. Did you know they were cannibals?”

  The man turned white. “Rumors! Just rumors!”

  “No, they are not. How could you allow them to live among you?”

  “It’s just so hard,” the man said, almost whimpering. “They shared some stuff with some of the people of the town… Not everyone wants them to leave. But I do and so do many others. We’ll help you. Just tell me what to do so I can tell the others.”

  “Take up arms. Kill them. You obviously know who they are.”

  Again the man’s face turned white. “They took our guns.”

  “I’m sure,” Craig said, not able to hide his disgust. “I’d bet everything I own that there are plenty more than enough guns in that town to do the job. People just aren’t willing to take the risk.”

  Walt didn’t say anything, and Craig was silent for a moment. Then Craig asked, “Do you know when they plan for another raid?”

  “I don’t know,” Walt said slowly. “A group left a few days ago, but only a few came back, all shot up. I don’t know when they might chance another try.”

  “What about getting them all together in one place, if your people aren’t willing to gang up on them one at a time.”

  “Well,” said Walt, “They are mostly staying in just two places now, and only leave in groups of three or more. They’ve begun taking back… Uh… taking food from us.”

  “I see,” Craig said his voice cold. “Tell me which houses.”

  Walt gave Craig two street addresses. “Go home and keep your mouth shut,” Craig told him.

  “When are you going to come in and do it?” Walt asked, his eyes shifting more than Craig thought normal under the circumstances.

  “Tell everyone you don’t want killed to be off the streets the night of day after tomorrow.”

  “Ok,” the man said. He turned and hurried away without another word, holding the flag at his side.

  “Quisling!” Craig muttered under his breath. He didn’t trust Walt Gruber one whit. Craig was getting set up for an ambush, and he knew it. But suddenly he smiled a small smile. Just perhaps the ambushers could be beat at their own game.

  Craig waited with mounting tension for the night to come two days later. The task was going to be very risky, so he turned the horses loose. They would stay right close to where he left them if a bear or cougar didn’t spook them. At least for a while.

  He worked his way to the edge of town just before dark, so he could get one good look at the route he would take to get to the two houses. The streets were silent and empty. When full dark came, Craig began working his way, not to the two houses named, but others. The ones next to each of the designated houses.

  Using all the stealth tactics he’d learned hunting, Craig approached the first house. Nothing. He tried the house on the other side of the designated house. Sure enough, there was a sentry standing on the back porch, trying to stay concealed, watching the house Craig was supposed to enter.

  Moving back just as quietly as he had approached, he checked the houses flanking the other house Walt had told him members of the gang would be in. Like the first one, the gang wasn’t in the house stated; they were in one flanking it, with a sentry watching for Craig to try to enter it.

  Making two assumptions he hoped were true, Craig prepared the two black powder bombs he’d made up the previous day. The first he placed under the front porch of the house with the gang members in it just waiting for the sentry to alert them to Craig’s presence. Being as quiet as possible, Craig put the second on the side of the house away from the target house.

  He lit the homemade fuse of the second bomb, and then hurried back to light the fuse of the first bomb. Moving carefully, but in something of a hurry, Craig headed toward the other set of houses. Stopping at the corner of the street where the other houses were, Craig took the M14E2 off his shoulder, opened the bipod, and went prone with it, the auto-rifle aimed down the street toward the other houses.

  A few seconds later the two black powder bombs went off within seconds of one another. A few seconds after that, men burst out of the house down the street and came running toward the site of the explosion.

  It was like shooting ducks, and it made Craig a little ill, but he mowed down the group of gang members running toward him, catching them all with a long burst. Some bullets went through two or more of the men before they stopped, the men were so close together.

  Getting up and carrying the M14E2 at the ready, Craig ran back to the bombed house. There was little left of the house that wasn’t knocked down and burning. Not wanting to waste the ammunition, Craig watched from the shadows for a bit before deciding everyone in it was either dead or long gone.

  People started coming out of other houses and Craig turned the rifle toward them, but held his fire. “I’ve done what you should have done. I don’t know if I killed all the cannibal gang, but I know you know who they are. It’s up to you what you do to any survivors. And be aware that Walt Gruber sent me in here into an ambush.”

  Craig started to lift the M14E2 up to his shoulder, but someone beat him to it. Someone in the crowd, with a rifle, fired three times and the plump body of Gruber fell, sliding to an ignominious stop.

  The same man stepped out of the group, making sure his rifle wasn’t pointed anywhere near Craig. “We’ll take care of it now. What’s your name, Cowboy?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Craig said. “The town is now yours. Make what you want of it. I want no part of a place that would allow what’s been going on here to happen.”

  “Listen, you…” said another person, but Craig just turned and began to walk away, not in the least interested in hearing what she had to say.

  Craig broke camp the next day and headed south. It took him a little while to get to the area where people were still extracting salt from the hot springs that were common in the area. As always, he scouted out the area before making human contact. He found a relatively peaceful area, with quite a bit of local trade going on. It was peaceful enough and with enough commerce going on that Craig was able to take a rental room for a few days while the horses were boarded and cared for.

  It took those few days to convince the management of the most likely of the several salt operations to set up a trade agreement between them and the Retreat, with the Retreat not only getting salt for its own use, but enough to act as a distributor for salt.

  Their local Amateur Radio operator contacted the Retreat and Craig got the guy with the salt operation talking to Quentin, to set up the deal, with Craig getting a life time supply of salt and a small piece of the action for working as the Retreat’s expediter on the deal.

  With two of his primary objectives taken care of, Craig wondered what to do next. He didn’t wonder long. He really needed a reliable long term supply of high grade sulfur for his black powder operation. There were plenty of willow trees around Sullivan and he planted as many as he c
ut, getting a grove of them started for coppicing, to insure the supply of charcoal he needed.

  There was plenty of nitrate for the operation in the many caves around Sullivan. Bat guano converted into excellent quality nitrates. Only the sulfur was starting to become a problem. A little went a long way in making the black powder, and his Mother had early on cornered the market for sulfur available through local salvage operations.

  So, with sulfur sources on his mind, Craig headed south again, toward the Gulf Coast. They extracted sulfur as a side product from several operations there. “Might just get myself a lobster to eat, too,” Craig said to himself. He’d heard his Mother talk about some of the meals that had been available before the war. Lobster had been her favorite.

  Craig became accustomed to the looks he got with his horses, Drover’s coat or duster, and the old weapons that they saw him wearing and carrying in the saddle scabbards. Along with the looks came the obvious ‘Hey, Cowboy’ greeting. But he kept it up. It was role camouflage that continued to give him an edge in reacting to dangerous situations. Besides, it was fun. Craig fully understood the appeal of Cowboy Action Shooting before the war.