by Steven Bird
Walking into the barn, Isaac reiterated, “He’s the line-back dun. You might as well get acquainted.”
Reaching out his hand and petting Hank on the nose, Jessie looked the horse in the eyes and said softly, “So, I hear you’ve got spirit, huh?”
Jerking his head back to see if Jessie had a treat in his hand, Hank nickered as if responding to his statement.
Stroking him on the neck, then running his hand down the horse’s back, Jessie assured him, “I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. Just try not to toss me, if you don’t mind. I’d hate to bust my stitches back open after Isaac worked so hard putting them in.”
After brushing him thoroughly, Jessie let Hank smell the saddle blanket, and once he seemed to get approval, he placed it on the horse’s back. Seeing no adverse reaction, he then lifted Hank’s saddle off the saddle rack and placed it on his back as well. After allowing him to stand for a minute, Jessie cinched it up.
Leading Hank outside the barn to where Isaac sat patiently in Mack’s saddle, Jessie said, “Well, here we go,” as he placed his boot in the stirrup. Putting some weight in the stirrup to test the waters, Jessie was pleased to see Hank stood perfectly still.
“Good boy,” he praised as he pushed upward, throwing his leg over Hank’s back.
Before he could get his right foot in the other stirrup, the race was on. Hank took off running with Jessie hanging on while bending Hank’s neck around with the left rein. “Whoa! Whoa, boy!”
After circling several times, Hank finally grew tired of the game and came to a stop, so Jessie could get his right boot in the stirrup. Looking over and seeing Isaac grinning from ear to ear, Jessie quipped, “Yep, he’s got spirit, alright. One thing I’ve learned over the years is whenever someone selling a horse says he has spirit; it really means they need training.”
“I’m sure the two of you will get used to each other before long,” Isaac replied with a grin as he nudged Mack forward with his heels.
The first ten or fifteen minutes of the ride was quiet. With Isaac’s attention fully on their surroundings and on the lookout for any potential threats, Jessie’s attention was focused on getting Hank to do what he wanted. Jessie felt as if he was facing a battle of wills, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to win.
Nearing a stream that flowed along an old, poorly-maintained gravel road, Isaac reined back on Mack and gently came to a stop. Looking back to Jessie as he joined up with him, he explained, “This road will save us quite a bit of time. It leads down to County Road 2 which will take us on into Aly.”
“Aly?” Jessie queried.
“Yes, Aly. Don’t you know where the hell you are, son?”
“Sorry, but I lost my Gazetteer along with everything else I had when I encountered the McCulloughs.”
“Aw, I’m just messin’ with ya,” Isaac teased. “Aly is a town, well, more of a place on a map that just happens to have a name, in an unincorporated area of Yell County. Archie’s place is on the east end of Aly. It sits right on County Road 2 and is bordered by the Irons Fork River to the south and Reed Creek to the north.”
“Archie?” Jessie queried.
“Archie Williams. He’s the fella who owns the farm I mentioned. You’ll like him. He’s cut from the same cloth as most from my generation. He’s got his head on straight. His only weakness was being out in the open like he is.”
Taking a deep breath, Isaac looked around and admitted, “But it’s hard to hide a cattle operation in the mountains, so I guess he didn’t have many options. Besides, that was his daddy’s place. You just can’t leave the family land because you’re scared. That just ain’t right.”
“I can’t say I would have left, either,” Jessie replied. “When my family and I left Cortez for our homestead in the mountains, we were merely leaving a newly-built, run-of-the-mill, middle-class home in a neighborhood. I knew we, especially my wife, would miss the town and the people in it, but not the house itself. We came to love our little mountain hideaway, though. I just wish...”
Seeing that Jessie was becoming lost in his painful memories, Isaac said, “I know. I know. We all have things we wish we’d have done differently. Trust me.”
Snapping himself out of it, Jessie remarked, “Well, Hank’s gonna get soft on me if I don’t keep working with him. Let’s get going,” Jessie said, nudging the horse gently in the sides with his boots to urge him forward.
Patting Mack on the neck, Isaac urged him forward as well. Isaac and Mack quickly took the lead once again, guiding them down the old gravel road toward County Road 2.
Chapter Seven
Approaching County Road 2, Isaac reined back on Mack and brought him to a stop. “Whoa, boy,” he said softly as he patted him on the neck and dismounted. Gesturing for Jessie to stop and dismount as well, Isaac tied Mack’s reins loosely to a small tree branch and crept forward. He knelt behind a thick patch of brush that would act as visual cover while he surveyed the area for threats.
Joining up with him, Jessie asked, “What is it?”
“Oh, nothing. Only a fool would pop out onto a road in these parts without making sure there weren’t any threats around,” Isaac replied. “No, I’ve got a rule,” he added, looking at his watch. “I’ll not move for fifteen minutes, once I come across another road. Being a patient man may be why I’m still gettin’ by.”
“I’d put money on that being the case,” Jessie concurred as he too, visually surveyed the area.
“I hope Millie is cooking something up for dinner. I’m gonna be starved by the time we arrive. My stomach is already growling,” Isaac stated as he patted his belly.
“Millie?”
“Millie is Archie’s wife. She’s a hell of a cook.”
Hearing what sounded like a diesel-powered truck off in the distance, Jessie started to speak, but Isaac motioned for him to remain still and listen. Within a few minutes, an older first-generation Dodge Ram 350 dually rattled by pulling a livestock trailer full of cattle. In the cab, alongside the driver, sat a man with what appeared to be an AR-15 rifle. Following close behind was an old, rusty Chevy pickup with several armed men riding in the bed and several people in the cab as well. Even from a distance, Isaac could see that each was armed to the teeth and looked like they meant business.
Whispering, Isaac explained, “A few of those boys are McCulloughs. The rest, hell, I’ve never seen ’em before. That’s not good. And what’s worse, that’s Archie’s old truck. He’s had that thing forever. I doubt he’d have parted with it willingly. It’s one of those old, all mechanical, twelve-valve Cummins motors. It’ll burn damn near anything. He just wouldn’t...”
After a brief interruption in his thoughts, Isaac reached out his hand and said, “Hand me that Marlin.”
Doing as he’d asked, Jessie handed Isaac the rifle. He watched Isaac scan the vehicles through the 3-9x scope. “Dammit!” Isaac exclaimed with tension in his voice. Turning to Jessie, he grumbled, “They’ve got Archie’s daughter, Tina. Something bad has happened. There’s no way in hell Archie would have let his daughter go with those bastards. I could see them strong-arming him out of his truck, but not his family. Are you up for some trouble?”
Answering with only a nod, Jessie took the rifle back from Isaac and they immediately turned and ran back to their horses. Mounting up quickly, they kicked their horses into action.
Riding as hard and as fast as they could, the two men cut across County Road 2 to the south and turned west. They handrailed the Iron Fork River through a series of ATV trails Isaac seemed to know like the back of his hand. Cutting across a pasture, Isaac urged Mack into a full gallop with Jessie following close behind. Although Jessie and Hank hadn’t quite come to terms with one another, Hank was more than willing to follow along behind Mack and Isaac, equaling their pace with little coercion on Jessie’s part.
Diving into the trees at the far end of the pasture, Isaac ducked when a branch took the old, wide-brimmed hat from atop his head, narrowly missing a direct impa
ct.
Ducking below the branch as well, Jessie worked hard to keep up with Isaac, who Jessie could now see was one hell of a horseman. Approaching a stream, Isaac brought Mack to a sliding stop, leaped from his back, and quickly drew the massive Sharps rifle from his saddle-mounted scabbard.
Bringing Hank to a much less elegant stop, Jessie dismounted, following closely behind with his rifle in hand. When he reached Isaac, who was now wading across the shallow river to reach a dirt road on the other side, Jessie winced in pain as the wound in his side was beginning to work its way open from all of the physical activity.
Ignoring the pain, Jessie pushed on, catching up with Isaac on the other side.
Isaac turned to him and shouted, “Follow the river a few hundred yards and take cover! When they come around this bend, I’ll stop them dead in their tracks. From there, while they’re concerned with me, start doing your best to work your way through the ranks. Don’t forget: Tina is sitting between the two men in the Chevy. Disable it if you can, so they don’t just turn around and get away. And be careful! Make sure nothing happens to her!”
Answering with a nod, Jessie held his wound tightly with his hand and quickly began working his way up the river’s edge toward the bend in the road where Isaac had sent him.
Taking cover behind an old tree stump alongside the road, Isaac drew one of the massive five-hundred-and-forty-grain .45-70 rounds, opened the breach of his Sharps with the trigger guard lever, slid the round inside, and forced the breech closed behind it. Manually cocking the hammer, Isaac rested the heavy barreled gun on top of the hand that laid atop the stump. Adjusting the Hadley eye disc on his tang-mounted Vernier sight to find just the right amount of light, Isaac then moved his hand to the elevation knob and adjusted for his estimated range to the target.
“Come on, you bastards,” he grumbled. He could hear the sound of the Cummins diesel chugging toward them, burdened by the heavily-loaded livestock trailer.
Jessie watched as the truck approached. Waiting for Isaac to make the first move, he just observed as the truck drove by, noting the two men in the cab, and how both of them seemed eerily familiar to him. Turning his attention to the Chevy, Jessie could now clearly see a young woman in her late twenties riding between two disheveled men, who both had rifles laying across their laps with each of the barrels protruding from their respective side windows.
When the truck came into Isaac’s view, he made a last-minute adjustment on his sight and pulled the set trigger. Hearing and feeling the definitive click, he then moved his finger gently toward the now feather-light main trigger and the massive round discharged, shoving the stock of the rifle into Isaac’s shoulder with authority.
Hearing the crack from Isaac’s old Sharps, Jessie watched as the driver of the truck’s head whipped back violently with blood and bits of tissue splattering all over the windows, as well as the man beside him.
The devastation from the massive lead round was startling. The man’s head was nearly gone as if it had exploded from the inside, leaving nothing but a few chunks of bone from the man’s skull dangling from the skin that just seconds before had covered the sides of the man’s head.
As the truck veered to one side, jackknifing in the road and coming to an abrupt, sideways sliding stop, a second shot rang out, smashing violently through the right shoulder of the passenger of the truck, crashing through the bone and entering his chest cavity from the side. The massive round killed the man instantly as his heart was crushed by the brutal impact.
Quickly taking aim at the driver of the Chevy, realizing Tina was too close to make the shot, Jessie turned his attention to the men in the back of the truck, who’d been knocked off their feet during the swerve. Cycling and firing the Marlin as fast as he could, Jessie engaged and struck down each of the men before they could get their bearings and begin returning fire.
He then turned his attention to the truck’s tires, firing at and hitting the left front. He quickly cycled another round into the chamber and took out the left rear tire as well.
Peeling the flattened tires off the rims when the driver attempted to turn the truck around in desperation, with nowhere else to go now that the livestock trailer had completely blocked the road ahead of him, the man unwittingly exposed his passenger to a clear shot from Jessie’s rifle.
Taking the shot through the glass of the windshield, Jessie could see Tina dive out of the way as the window spiderwebbed from the bullet hole, followed by the passenger’s head snapping back and covering the rear window with blood and brain matter.
Working the action and chambering another round, Jessie aimed at the driver, who was now exiting the vehicle and swinging his rifle toward Tina, motioning for her to follow.
Taking aim and pulling the trigger, Jessie was horrified by the tell-tale click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. He had lost track of his round count and in this most critical moment, had found out the hard way that his magazine tube had run dry.
“Drop it!” Jessie screamed at the man, hoping he hadn’t realized Jessie had run his rifle dry. When the man began to bring his rifle to bear against him, Jessie heard the thundering boom from Isaac’s Sharps from a distance, followed by the man being jerked off his feet from the impact of the heavy buffalo round as it crashed into his sternum, crushing his internal organs on impact.
Seeing Tina drop to her knees, shaking from fear, Jessie ran out of the woods holding his rifle off to the side, shouting, “It’s okay! I’m with a friend of yours!”
“Tina!” shouted Isaac as he ran around the jackknifed trailer and into view. “Oh, God, Tina!” he cried as he ran to her, dropping to his knees and embracing her as he laid his rifle on the ground.
Keeping a keen eye on their surroundings while his heartrate began to slow from the preceding intense moments, Jessie could hear the cattle in the trailer struggling and crashing around in a near panic. “How long before we should expect more?” he asked.
Interrupting their embrace, Isaac looked up to Jessie and said, “You’re right, we’ve got to get moving.”
Looking through the bed of the blood-splattered Chevy for anything of potential use, Isaac saw an old logging chain and insisted, “Let’s hook this to the trailer and get it straightened up. We’ll have to deal with the mess in the Dodge and drive it back to Archie’s. We can’t just leave his cattle here for the McCulloughs. I don’t want those bastards eatin’ well on the backs of people like Archie anymore. This ends now.”
Chapter Eight
With the Dodge and its trailer straightened up and facing the opposite direction, Jessie did his best to cover the blood and gore with an old wool blanket Archie had kept behind the seat.
Once Isaac had retrieved both horses and calmed the cattle, he urged them forward in the trailer, ahead of the partition panel. Once clear of the partition, he closed it behind them and loaded both horses in the rear behind the partition. Walking back to Jessie at the cab of the truck, Isaac ordered, “You drive. I’ll ride shotgun. I know the area. I know where to look for trouble.”
“Yes, sir,” Jessie replied sharply while he tucked the blanket covering the blood into the seat to keep in in place as they climbed in.
While the truck began to make its way back up the rough, gravel road toward County Road 2, Tina rested her head on Isaac’s shoulder and squeezed his hand tightly.
“What happened, Tina?” he asked softly.
“They came for what they’ve been calling taxes. They’ve been coming around once a week demanding milk, eggs, and beef. Daddy had been putting up with it because they weren’t taking all that much. We still had plenty for ourselves, and he didn’t want to risk getting into a fight and getting one of us hurt or killed. He assured us it wouldn’t last forever, but it sure seemed like it would.”
Wiping a tear from her cheek, she sniffled and continued, “Today, they said something about having joined up with a larger group and our taxes were going to have to go up. They laughed and said they would b
e taking Daddy’s truck and trailer. They seemed to be goading him. It’s like they knew where such a demand would ultimately lead.
“That crossed a line in Daddy’s eyes. He refused and got into it with one of them. They beat him pretty bad. I’ll never forget the image of them standing over him, stomping and kicking him while Momma screamed.
“While two of them continued beating him, two other men grabbed me and dragged me toward the other truck. I heard a gunshot, but don’t know exactly what happened. They shoved me in the truck and held my face against the dash as they drove away. They joined up with this truck about a mile down the road and were laughing and joking about the whole thing. They refused to tell me what all had happened. I begged them. I needed to know.”
Looking to Isaac, she pleaded with desperation in her voice, “We’ve got to get back there. I’m scared to death about what they may have done.”
Squeezing her hand tightly, Isaac said, “We’re on our way now. Jessie and I will do everything we can to help. Ain’t that right, Jessie?”
“Yes, sir,” Jessie said, confirming with a nod.
“Thank you,” she sobbed. “Thank you so much. I can only imagine what they would have done with me when they got me back to their friends.”
“I’m just sorry we didn’t make it to your folk’s place sooner,” Isaac replied. He turned and looked out the window, his eyes welling up with tears.
~~~~
When Jessie turned the old Dodge off the main road, pulling Archie’s livestock trailer onto the driveway of the old Williams family farm, Isaac asked Jessie to pull to a stop.
