by Ward, Marsha
“James has the right to say yeah or nay whether he’ll marry Ellen. You don’t hold any cards there. You’re not to speak to her, nor come near her in any fashion, until he plays his hand. If he won’t marry her, you still have to wipe clean the blot you’ve set against her name,” Chester had said, blue eyes drilling into Carl’s. “You prove to me that you’re a man of honor, then I’ll consider giving my leave for you to court her.”
As he swung around the heels of the cow he’d set after, Carl acknowledged to himself that he’d been a bit callous in observing that ban when he spoke to Ellen the night before he left, but now a great joy surged through him as he remembered her reply to his frenzied speech.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha-a-a!” he cried out, throwing his hat into the air. The cow he’d been following shied away and started toward the herd at a lope. Carl laughed again and trotted the horse back to retrieve his hat, bending far down to pick it out of a patch of Spanish bayonet. “Ellen wants me to call,” he shouted to the hills. “ELLEN WANTS ME TO CALL!” He gave another great whoop, then started after the moving herd.
~~~
“I heard quite a commotion back in your neck of the woods today,” Bill Henry remarked around the fire that night. “Did you happen across some loco weed out there?”
Carl grinned and shook his head. “Uh-uh,” was all he said.
Clay looked up from his plate, chewing his food. “I reckon he’s fired up about us being back in Colorado. He thinks he’s got a girl waiting for him.” His voice was light and bantering. “I think she’ll take one look at that set of fox tails he’s got stuck on his cheeks, and she’ll walk right into my arms.” He ducked his head as the men around the fire laughed.
Carl wiped his knife blade on his jean trousers leg and stood up. “I reckon there ain’t nothing wrong with a red beard, ‘specially since it matches the color of her hair so nice.”
Rulon looked up from scraping his plate. “It’s a good thing James is out with the herd, Carl.” He stood up and dumped the plate into the cook’s washtub.
“James don’t scare me,” Carl retorted. “He’ll come to see things my way, by and by.”
“I don’t think you should sell James short, brother.” Rulon wiped his hands on his trousers. “He still claims Miss Ellen’s hand.”
“Well, I claim Miss Ellen’s heart!”
~~~
Frank Tilden rose and put his dinnerware in the tub. Nodding to the others, he strolled over to his horse and mounted it, then moved off in the direction of the herd. After a few minutes’ ride, he came alongside Pete Dawes, who—with James on the far side of the herd—was holding the cattle while the others ate.
“Go in and eat, Pete. No, wait a minute.” Tilden took out a tobacco pouch and prepared to roll a cigarette. “They’re all joshing Carl back there about his red beard. He says it’s the same color as his girl’s hair. She, I gather, is also under the claim of the black-haired brother. I thought the boss was going after some yellow-haired dame that’s supposed to be Carl’s girl.” He licked the cigarette paper and carefully pinched it together. “I get a piece of that red-head when we’ve finished off the men, if I recollect rightly.”
“I do recall your saying so.” Pete’s voice was quiet in the darkness. “There’s a dark-haired one, too, ain’t there?”
“That’s Marie, the old man’s daughter.” The cigarette between his lips muffled Tilden’s voice. A match flared in the night.
“I’m partial to dark hair,” Pete said, sniffing. “I earned it, too. Trailing cattle ain’t my favorite occupation.”
“You’d rather plug Rebels full of holes, eh, Pete?” Frank laughed.
“Don’t even have to be Rebels.” Pete sat his horse in silence for a long time. “Just anybody I don’t like.” His saddle creaked as he shifted weight.
Frank felt a chill scurrying along his backbone, raising goose bumps. He hurried to change the subject. “You figure Berto’s out there behind us?”
“He said he’d be there, didn’t he? Berto don’t tell no lies. I reckon he’s going to close the noose pretty quick now. You look sharp, and don’t get caught sleeping when he comes down on this bunch of high-thinking Rebels.” Pete rode off toward the campfire.
~~~
When they had driven the herd past Edward Morgan’s farm down on the Cuchara River, Ed and his sons had come out to meet them, and to keep the cattle out of the young corn crop. Tom Morgan told Rulon that Ellen was still up at the Owen’s place, and Rulon passed on the information to Carl.
“I ain’t seen her for such a long spell,” he said, coughing on the dust the cattle raised from the prairie. “I’m almighty scared I’m going to take her right into my arms and hug her to pieces without asking her pa’s leave.”
“Not to mention, James’s,” Rulon said wryly.
Carl shrugged, and spurred his horse after a hungry cow trotting off toward Ed Morgan’s field.
~~~
“I have a meadow picked out on the flank of the mountain,” Rod said at dawn in the final camp near the homesteads. “It connects to another one higher up, and there’s plenty of grass and water. We’ll drive the cattle back in there and they’ll pretty near take care of themselves all summer. That’s good, because we’ve got plenty of work and lots of building to do down at headquarters.”
Rulon nudged Carl. “Pa likes that word, ‘headquarters’. He ain’t called the cabins anything but that since we got back this side of the Colorado line. I reckon he’s got a dream again.”
Carl laughed. “He can dream all he wants as long as we got the muscle to bring it to life. I don’t take no offense. I reckon I dream a mite myself.”
Rod took the lead and showed where a game trail led through the trees toward the meadow he had in mind. All hands fell back into position around the herd, driving it along the narrow trail and preventing cows from breaking loose into the brush and trees.
Riding at flank position well back along the side of the herd, Carl found that keeping the cattle from wandering into the trees was hard work, and it left him little time for thinking how close by Ellen was. He turned the brown gelding he was using that day toward a cow bent on escaping through the underbrush. The horse cut off its route, and the cow loped back to the herd, bawling in protest.
“Brownie, you’re one good cow pony.” Carl patted his mount. “Let’s get that steer up there.”
Ducking under the overhanging limb of a juniper, Carl and the brown horse went after yet another errant steer.
~~~
Marie looked around, peering through the berry-laden bushes as she popped a blackberry into her mouth. “Where’s Julianna? ” she asked Ellen Bates. “Has that girl wandered off again?”
“I haven’t seen her since we moved into this gully. I reckon we’d best go back and find her.” Ellen craned her neck to examine the brambles through which they had come.
“Oh, let her find us. I’m tired of coaxing her to keep up.”
“Marie, what if the Indians get her? Your ma will have our hides. Besides, we’ve got enough berries for the pies.”
“Well, we have come pretty far today. You’re right. We’d better go back.” Marie turned to un-snag her apron from a bramble, and smoothed it down over her skirt. She straightened up and tugged her sunbonnet into place, then turned again and looked toward her friend.
Ellen stood in front of a big black horse, her hands pinioned behind her back. The scruffy, thickset man who held her covered her mouth with his massive hand. Ellen struggled, and her abductor laughed as the berries in her pail scattered on the ground.
Marie screamed, and the cry echoed back, bouncing on the walls of the canyon. A heavy hand clamped over her own mouth, and she tried to bite it, but the man only let go and slapped her across the mouth. She fell, scraping her arm on a rock as she went down. She screamed again, and the man reached down and yanked her to her feet. He turned her roughly around and tied her hands, laughing.
“Go ahead and scream till you’re blue in the fa
ce, girlie. Ain’t nobody out here to give a listen. ‘Course, if your noise gets on my nerves, I’ll slug you again.” He tested the security of his knots, then whipped her around and leered at her, sunken blue eyes beneath shaggy eyebrows looking her up and down. His dirty brown hair hung to his shoulders, matted and tangled, and his beard was stained with tobacco juice and old bits of food.
Marie choked back her next scream, almost retching at the sight of her attacker.
“Rankin, you gag her up. No telling how far those cries will carry in this still air. We ain’t far enough behind them riders to take a chance.” Willy held his hand over Ellen’s mouth, and he grinned at her as he let go. “You cry out and you’ll get the same treatment as your friend. I ain’t opposed to taming you good and proper, you little wildcat.”
He tied Ellen’s hands, then stuffed a dirty neckerchief into her mouth and shoved her toward his horse.
“We’re going to take a little ride,” he chortled. He mounted his horse and hauled Ellen up into the saddle in front of him. Rankin pushed Marie over to his horse and stepped into his saddle.
“You let loose a peep and I’ll yank out your hair,” he threatened the terrified girl. Then he bent down and jerked her up into his filthy arms.
Julianna scrambled behind a boulder as the men rode out of the ravine with their captives. She watched, breathless, as they passed three feet in front of her hiding place, saddle leather creaking with the added weight of the two girls. In silence she waited, long agonizing minutes until she was sure the men were gone, then she crept out from behind the rock and set off for home, running as best she could down the hills that lay in her path, heart thumping, pounding, choking up into her throat.
She heard riders coming behind her, and she darted into a clump of trees, hoping they hadn’t seen her yet. Trying not to breathe aloud, she gulped air, waiting for them to capture her. Then, as they came alongside her place of concealment, she recognized the men, and cried out, “Papa, Papa! Help them! They been carried off!”
Chapter 19
“Julianna! Daughter, you’re a welcome sight.” Rod reined in his horse as his youngest child dashed from behind the tree. “You’re not out here alone, are you?” He dismounted, and Julianna flung herself into his arms, sobbing.
“Oh Papa, they been took away.” She burrowed her face into his chest. “We was picking blackberries, and two mangy old men came up and grabbed ‘em. I heard ‘em screaming and I hid when they went by. Oh Papa, you got to go after ‘em!”
“Whoa there, Jule. Who got took?” Rod tried to calm the hysterical child.
“Marie and Ellen. They took ‘em up toward the mountain.” She waved her hand toward the looming Greenhorn.
Carl blanched and wheeled his horse back the way they had come, and James followed closely behind him.
Rod boosted Julianna up onto Albert’s horse. “Clay, Albert, take your sister home. If there are only two of them acting so bold this close to the headquarters, there’s likely more around somewhere. You stay there and see that your ma’s safe.”
Rod mounted his horse as his two younger sons rode down the mountain with their sister. He motioned up the trail with his head, and spoke to the others. “We’d best catch up to the boys, or they’ll have the whole situation arranged without our help.” Rod rode off in the direction Carl and James had taken.
Tilden looked at Dawes. Pete nodded his head in the same direction. “Let’s go.” They followed Rod and the other riders up the trail.
~~~
Carl drew rein in the blackberry canyon. Ellen’s pail lay in the path, contents scattered and mashed into the dirt.
“They took them here, but they didn’t linger,” he told James through tight lips.
“We’d best wait for Rulon. He’s the best tracker of us all.”
“I’m good enough to follow these hair-bellied four-flushers. I ain’t waiting for Rulon. They’ve got Ellen.”
Carl alighted from his horse and fingered the hoof marks left by the kidnappers’ horses. “Only one bug has scooted through here. They ain’t been gone long.” He stepped into the saddle. “Come on, James. Let’s get them scoundrels.”
James checked his pistol load, and made sure the rifle was secure in the saddle scabbard. “How are your firearms?” he asked Carl.
His brother drew his pistol and spun the cylinder. “It’s full but for one chamber.” Turning in the saddle, he loosened the flap of a saddlebag and removed the Smith and Wesson. “This one’s ready to go. I keep all six chambers loaded, just for varmints.” He tucked it down behind his waistband, then checked the rifle in his scabbard. “We’d best get a move on,” he said, frowning. “Every minute their lead gets longer.” He put spurs to the horse’s flanks and followed the trail out of the canyon.
Heading south, he skirted the boulder Julianna had used for cover and picked up the tracks of the abductors. James came behind, and they took the trail leading upward, into the pine forest, then past a deep canyon that reached back up the mountain. The trail forked, and Carl took the branch that stretched into the forest, where the path soon lay under a thick layer of pine needles.
“I lost ‘em,” he sputtered, and circled his horse back to cast around for the tracks. He glanced up and saw his father and the other riders coming through the trees. “Well, here’s Rulon’s chance to go to work,” he muttered.
When Rulon was in hailing distance, Carl called out to him. “I lost the trail. You been tracking?”
Rulon grinned. “Does a red hound have fleas? You missed a turn back yonder. They headed straight into the canyon. I reckon they know you’re following them now.”
“Where they going? We ain’t been on this section of the mountain.”
Sourdough Smith, the cook Bill Henry had brought along, turned over the lump of plug tobacco in his cheek. “I reckon they’re heading for an old cabin up there, below the crest of the ridge. I done some trapping through here, years ago.” He spit a stream of tobacco juice into the brush. “I reckon I can still find it, if you want me to take you there.”
“You find it,” Carl said. “I’ll be right behind you. Nobody but a lowdown snake abuses a woman where I come from.”
Rod looked around at the riders. “I know I’m not paying soldier’s wages, but who will stand with me and my boys to get those girls back?”
Bill Henry said, “Down in Texas, we go after scum like that for free.” He turned to the others. “Any of you want to stay behind, you’re declaring yourselves in favor of snakes and lowlifes.”
Pete Dawes looked around at the sober-eyed Owen men. “Well, I shoot any snakes I come across,” he said, spreading his lips open across his teeth.
“I ain’t in favor of no lowlifes,” grunted Frank Tilden.
Chico Henderson checked his revolver. “Let’s go.”
“You got my gun,” added Bob Henry.
Sourdough led off, up the canyon on the left side, the rest of the riders following him on the dim trail, one by one, riding with their rifles loose in their scabbards and their eyes scanning the way ahead.
Carl felt a prickle in the hairs on the back of his neck. As he changed directions on a switchback in the trail, he muttered to Rulon, “I don’t like this. We’re all exposed on the face of this wall. If they’re laying for us, they can pick us off one at a time, and us with no cover.”
Rulon nodded. “Keep your eyes peeled when we top that ridge.”
The canyon wall was steep, and the horses were winded by the climb as they approached the lip of the cut. The ten riders edged cautiously into the open on top, and moved quickly into the shelter of the forest.
Sourdough pointed through the trees in the direction of the summit. “We’ve got a right smart way yet to go. Best we let the horses rest a while.” He dismounted, and his horse shied against Frank Tilden’s mount.
Tilden’s horse reared, but the man kept his seat, cursing the cook. “I don’t ride with rum-soaked, broken-down old codgers. Here’s yours.”
“You stupid oaf,” cried Pete Dawes. “Can’t you do anything right?” His gun was out, and he shot Chico through the left shoulder. “Damn, you got me doing it now,” he shouted, firing at Rod as he turned his horse to flee. His last shot also went high, and opened a furrow across Rod’s skull. Then he was gone, and Tilden with him, and three men were down, their blood soaking into the pine needles.
Carl and Bill Henry started to ride after them, but Rulon called them back. “Let them go. I reckon I’d druther have them in front of me than behind, now that we know the set of their minds.”
James and Sourdough bent over the injured men. Bob was the worst hit, struggling to breathe, fighting the pain of his shattered chest.
Bill went to his knees and looked at the gaping hole in his cousin’s body. “Lie still,” he growled, his face working. “You’re going to pull through.”
“Ah, Bill,” Bob coughed, choking on his own blood. “Be sure they bury me in a patch of green. I never could abide the dust in Texas.”
“Don’t you go!” his cousin cried out, but Bob never heard him.
James stuffed moss into the hole in Chico’s shoulder. “It missed the bone, tore up the muscle, then came out the back, so you won’t die of lead poisoning,” He untied Chico’s neckerchief and used it to bind the wound. “We got to get you off this mountain and down to Ma. She can clean you up better.” James looked around at Rulon and Carl, who were tending to Rod’s wound. “How’s Pa? Can he ride?”
“It’s deeper than I first thought, but if he don’t pass out, he’s tough enough to make it.” Rulon helped his father to his feet. “Dizzy, Pa? This fight’s over for you. You need to get Chico down where Ma can put him and you to rights.”
Rod shook his head to clear it. “I got to what?” he asked, obviously confused by the bullet crease on his head.
“Go home, Pa. We lost Bob. Take his body down home. Ma will patch you up.”
