by Lou Bradshaw
The first thing that came to mind was she could be a run away from her husband. If that were the case, then we would have no choice but to give her back if he came lookin’ for her. Another possibility was that she had escaped from some Injuns, but she looked to have been on the run for days. Any Injun worth a feather would have found her in short order. The last thing that came to mind was that she had gotten away from a white man or men. If that was the case, then they would play hell getting her back if she didn’t want to go.
She looked much better this morning than she had when we first saw her, but I didn’t think she was up to traveling so I told her, “Senora, I’m thinking that I need to rest the sheep at least another day… They’ve been on the move for over a week with little rest and little time for grazing. This looks like a good place to rest ‘em, unless you’re in a hurry to get some place.” I knew it didn’t sound like much of a reason for stopping so close to home, but she nodded her agreement. She knew I was lying, but she seemed to appreciate the gesture.
We stayed close to camp that day, just letting the sheep graze with Pico and Antonio tending them in a meadow a short distance away. It was just her and me in the camp, she had taken her shredded clothing down to the creek to wash and spread them over bushes to dry. I took the time allotted by sitting idle for a day to do some repair on my leather goods, and to clean and oil my weapons… I had a feeling that they would need to be in top shape before this woman was safely where she belonged.
She fixed a noon meal, and I took a plate to Antonio. When I got back I told her, “Antonio says to tell you thank you, and it dawned on me that we don’t know your name. We just refer to you as the hurt lady.”
She smiled the first smile I’d seen that reached all the way to her eyes. “I am sorry, Senor Cain, My name is Angelina… Angelina… Ramos.” When she said, Ramos, her eyes started to mist up again. I thanked her and quickly turned away, giving her privacy for her pain.
We planned to move on the next morning, so things were packed and all was made ready for the trail. It was agreed on that Angelina would ride one of the horses and we would walk with the sheep, since I had the more comfortable saddle and the better horse, that’s what she would ride.
It was past midnight when I woke to build up the fire and check on the flock. When my eyes were fully open, I noticed that the fire was burning well, which surprised me after at least three hours of neglect. That’s when I heard the sound of someone crying softly. Angelina sat on a rock near the fire covered with a blanket and her face in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking from her sobs.
I started to turn away and leave her alone, but I had done that and it didn’t seem to help her any, so I got up and barged into her life. “Ma’am,” I said, “I don’t speak very well, but I listen real good… I know you’ve got some grief, but you really need to talk about it… it can surely help. You’ll feel better.”
Pouring myself a cup of coffee, I sat on a rock a few feet from hers and waited. She sat there as if she didn’t hear me… sobbing. I’m a patient man, so I waited. She would have to tell me to leave, and I’m not sure I would even then.
Finally, she looked up at me with her red rimmed eyes and tear streaked face and said, “Senor Cain, I can tell that you are a good man from how you treat your animals and Antonio and from your kindness to me….”
We sat in silence for about a minute, she looking into the fire and me looking at my feet. I don’t relish looking at a fire because it can leave you temporarily blinded in the surrounding darkness. Then she wiped her eyes and her cheeks and started to speak but choked and started again.
“Until a little while ago, I prayed that all that had happened was only a bad dream, and I would wake up next to my husband, Hernando. He would hold me and tell me that everything was all right…” She shuddered with a wracking sob but continued. “I finally realized that it was not a bad dream, but a horrible truth.”
“I was preparing our breakfast, and Hernando was turning out the sheep, when three men rode into our yard. They were gringos… white men. They were dirty with dirt that was long on the skin. Hernando moved toward the jacal where he kept a shotgun.” She choked back a sob and wiped at her eyes. I waited.
“One of the men… the one with hair the color of straw shot him and then shot him more when he had fallen…. I ran to him, but one of them grabbed me and pulled me across his saddle, and we turned away from the yard and rode swiftly. I could hear shooting back at the sheep pen. They must have been shooting the sheep and the dogs. I fought him and tried to get free, but he hit me and I was out.”
“When I woke, I was in a dark room, but lights were coming in… it was a shack of some kind… very small and very dirty. There were no windows and only one door, it was bolted from the outside. It wasn’t long before they came for me and took me to another shack close by. I was afraid of what they wanted from me, but they only made me cook for them. They laughed, they grabbed, but they only wanted to be fed. When they finished eating, they told me that I could have what was left. I could hear them out in the yard, but I could not see them from the window. I waited a little, hoping they would get drunk and fall to sleep.”
“I opened the door very quietly and looked through the crack. I could see no one, so I opened it and started outside. I was grabbed and pushed back inside. They were there waiting. They were laughing. They tore at my clothing.” She was crying again, and I just put my arm around her shoulder and she cried on my shoulder for a long, long time.
She spilled her soul that night. As delicately as possible, she told the whole story of ten day in captivity. They had used her, often, and used her badly. No woman should be treated that way no matter who she was or what kind of woman she was.
The saddest part of the whole ordeal was that she had been a few months pregnant when she was taken. They had lost two babies before, and they were praying that this one would come into the world sqalling like a banshee, but she lost it during her escape in the forest. No wonder she looked like a ghost when she stepped out of those bushes.
She told me that when she heard the sheep, she was sure that we were Mexicans, but when she saw me and saw that I was a gringo, she thought I was one of them. She apologized for thinking that, and I apologized for being so scary.
Along about two thirty she fell asleep on my shoulder. When I was sure well asleep, I lifted her and carried her to her place and put another blanket on her. I wasn’t going to need it, since I wouldn’t be going back to sleep.
Now, I’m not a fast thinking man. I give things a lot of study before I take any action, and usually I don’t choose the way that I’d decided on. So all that studying don’t amount to much in the long run, but I like doin’ it… it’s kinda like my entertainment. Right then, I had to figure out what to do with Angelina. And when I got her safely tucked away with her people, I’d have to study on what to do with them three that caused her so much pain and heartache.
They needed to die. I’m not one to swear a blood oath out on someone as a rule. Oh, I knew about them from back home in Tennessee. Someone was always swearing a blood oath out on someone who had killed one of their kin. We were a pretty small family, so we didn’t have any reason to start up a feud over a cousin getting killed…. There weren’t no cousin.
But those men were born to die, and I planned to see that they fulfilled their destiny. Angelina had given me pretty good descriptions of the three of them. She knew the names by which they called each other but not their last names. Although, they had mentioned Frank Daveys, and the gang. That rang a bell from something that old Percy had told me in Creede after I got through stomping on that fella in the saloon. He said, “Boy, you better run yourself right on out of this country… he’s one of the Frank Daveys bunch.”
I reckon they’ll have some work cut out for themselves.
Chapter 10
We were up and gone early the next morning. Angelina looked tired, but she had a much more peaceful look about her. I suspect t
hat she got a lot of cleansing done last night. It would be a long time before she was completely over what had happened to her husband, herself and their baby… if in fact she ever got over it. There are some wounds that time just can’t heal. The least I could do was to even up the accounts against these three.
A day and a half later, we herded the flock onto my shelf. I helped Angelina down and opened the cabin for her, and then Antonio and I took care of the horses and unloaded the packs. There was ample graze on the shelf for the sheep, for a while anyway, but there was a high meadow not far off to the left. It was open ground with a stream running through it and about forty acres of grass encircled with aspen and leading up to pine and on up till it weren’t nothing but bare rock.
I told the others to make themselves comfortable and at home while I went out and tried to get us some meat for supper. I was for sure going to need a smoke house because with sheep to tend to I couldn’t be running far and wide for game. Maybe sheep weren’t what I should be doing out here, but I’ll give ‘em a fair chance.
I was back within a couple of hours after killing a young buck. I’d taken about thirty pounds of the best parts wrapped in the hide. The meat would spoil too quick in this weather, so I left the rest of it for the coyotes and other scavengers.
Over some thick venison steaks, I laid out my plans for the immediate future. “Angelina, I’d like to get you safely back to your family or your people as soon as possible because I’ve got some important work to take care of… Now, I’m going to go up to Creede for supplies and get what it will take to fix your clothes, so you won’t have to go back in a buckskin shirt. You can go with me if you’d like. It’ll take about two days.”
“Antonio, if you feel comfortable staying here with the sheep while I take Angelina home, I’d sure take it as a favor and you’ll get puncher’s wages for every day it takes.”
Angelina said that I didn’t need to do that. She could go home in a blanket if need be but she told me what it would take. Antonio told me that he was the grandson of the great Rubio and was afraid of nothing… I believed him.
I showed him where that forty acre meadow was and told him that he knew best how to deal with sheep. “You’re in charge, Antonio.”
The next afternoon, I was in Creede tying my purchases behind my saddle. I got some flour, bacon, beans, needles and thread, and because I wasn’t sure what color thread would be right I bought a skirt, a blouse, and the stuff that go under it. The store owner’s wife helped me with the size. I was feelin’ quite proud of myself when I heard someone yell, “Hey, Buckskin… Yeah you… in the greasy buckskins.”
I looked up the street and there angling across from the saloon came a big old boy who looked like he’d be handful sober and a whole lot of trouble when he wasn’t…. and he wasn’t. Right behind him was the boy I used for a door mat the last time I was here. This didn’t seem like some place I wanted to be.
I had my right hand on the saddle because I was getting ready to mount up. My rifle was in the boot and my sixgun was on my right side for a crossdraw, since the left hand was the one I favored. That was all well and good, but the way I was turned, any movement in that direction would get me killed.
He was big, dirty, and needed a shave about three weeks ago, and like I had already mentioned he was drunk… mean drunk. And he wanted to tell me how mean he was. So while he proceeded to tell me what he was going to do to me for taking advantage of his pal, I just stood there and shifted my weight and insolently put my left hand on my hip. It was far from my sixgun, but it was right on top of the tomahawk at my belt.
He was in the process of tellin’ me how bad he was going to stomp me, and if I wouldn’t fight, then he would shoot me. To emphasize his threat, he slapped his holster, and I threw that hatchet. His hand hadn’t moved when that blade split his breast bone. His eyes got big and he looked down at my tomahawk sticking out of his chest. He looked confused rather than alarmed. His knees buckled, and he went limp as he crashed to the ground.
The whole while he was going down, I was bringing that Colt out of its holster and bringing it to bear on his friend. My door mat had already started to bring his weapon up when I put the first chunk of lead in him, and he was on the way down when I sent the second one after it.
Walking the short distance between me and where they lay, I kept the hammer eared back on that Colt. I wasn’t about to leave that good tomahawk in that boy’s chest. It was a good one and had great balance for throwing. That big’n was still alive, but he wouldn’t be for long. There was blood coming from his mouth, and with each ragged breath there was more blood bubbling up. When I pulled that hatchet out, he stared at me with so much hate that I could smell it.
The other one was dead, as I figured him to be. You just oughta know that going around being an outlaw and hurting folks is bound to catch up with you sooner or later. I picked up their weapons and stashed them in my belt. They won’t be needing them, but I still have some business with their pals… to teach them a little respect for womanhood. There was some cheering and clapping coming from those on the boardwalks, but I just threw my leg over my horse’s back and rode south out of town.
I’d made camp about the midway point to home last night, and I was on the trail before the sun. My goal was to be there before noon, and it looked like I’d make it. I was anxious to see Angelina’s face when she opened that new outfit. It wasn’t much, and I had no special reason to get it. It wasn’t like she was my woman or anything like that. Oh, I didn’t dislike her. She was a nice person who needed a little pick up. And I had a notion that new clothes were just the thing to pick up a woman’s spirit.
As I was coming around the last bend in the trail and out of the pines I sensed that something was wrong. There were a few sheep in the door yard. There should have been many, or there should have been none but not a few. I looked for Antonio and finally spotted him in the stable saddling his horse.
He was unsteady and was making a poor job of it. He heard me and swung around with his rifle in hand. “Senor Cain!” He almost shouted. “Thank the Virgin, you are here. They came and took her… they took Senora Angelina… they scattered the sheep… and…” He was babbling. I got down and looked at his eyes. The way he was acting, he’d been hurt. That’s when I saw the blood in his hair.
I sat him down and took a look at it. I was worried about Angelina, but I was responsible for Antonio. As I was cleaning his wound, he told me how the three came in a little while ago, grabbed her, and one of them laid a pistol barrel across his skull when he tried to fight them.
As quick as possible, I unloaded my purchases and got ready to go after them. Antonio had finished saddling his horse and was ready to get into the saddle, when I said, “I know you want to go after them, but I need you to stay here and round up the sheep. You’ve been hurt, Antonio, and I need to travel fast if I’m going to get to them by nightfall. I’m countin’ on you to be here and ready to start shootin’, if we have to come in quick.” I gave him one of the handguns that I’d taken from the two dead men. “There’s a box of .44s in there on the shelf. Watch yourself, me amigo.”
I scouted around a bit until I had a good look at their tracks. Then I started down the slope toward the valley. As I left the shelf, I saw the dog, Rico, pushing a half dozen sheep into the yard. I’d forgotten all about him.
They must not have expected any pursuit because they left a trail that a drunk monkey could follow. It figures that they took her from a sheep operation tended by an Injun boy, and there wasn’t anyone else around. So he was the sheep herder, and how much trouble could a sheep herder cause them… They were about to find out.
There were three horses, so someone was probably riding with Angelina across his saddle. They were through the narrow valley at the south west base of Marble Mountain. It was tall grass with streams cutting through here and there. Their trail was almost too easy through that tall grass; I could follow it at a lope. When they would cross a stream they came ou
t of the water almost directly across from where they went in… No they weren’t the least bit worried about anyone tracking them.
There’s two things that I really dislike, one is arrogance, another is stupidity, but when you put three men together who are arrogant about their stupidity… now, that’s something that I can really put a hate on.
I smelled it before I saw it, but I knew what it was immediately, it was smoke. And I knew exactly where it was. It was coming from a little canyon about a quarter mile upstream from where I was. There was a feeder creek coming out to join the main stream, and a point coming down the side of the mountain that extended out into the valley.
Entering that canyon by the front door was possible, but not prudent… I wasn’t always prudent, but I wasn’t completely stupid either. So I took the side door, which meant leavin’ my horse at the base of that ridge and going over the top of it on foot. That didn’t matter a whole bunch, I was walking before I ever rode a horse, so I knew how to do it just fine.
That ridge was about forty or fifty feet high where I wanted to cross over, and it was covered with aspens and cedars. That would be a little bit of trouble going up, but it would give good cover goin’ down. I swear there ain’t anything thicker than a cedar grove, unless it’s a bunch of aspens. They’re the first ones that come up after a fire. They both seem to get things started again.
The shadows were stretchin’ out and some of the hollows were filling with darkness. It was time to get this over with. I checked my sixgun and the one in my belt. My Winchester had a round in the chamber, so it was time to go over the top.
It took me about eight or ten minutes to work my way up to the crest, and I could see exactly where the fire was. I went straight for it. Those boys were pretty sure of themselves; I reckon they didn’t expect anyone out and about in this part of the country… Leastwise anyone willing to mess with them. I was willing and even looking forward to it.
