Sharpshooter

by Dusty Richards

  “What are you going to do next?”

  “Take Bo to the Verde Ranch today. He wants to talk to those others who are receiving money.”

  “He wanted you to know the trials were being take care of?”

  “Bo and I are close. He’s considerate.”

  “You hired some tough guys to guard him night and day to make him quit drinking, they told me.”

  “I had to. He’d sell something and go get drunk for a week. You couldn’t count on him but he was good at selling and buying land. He was married but the gal died. That’s why he drank.”

  “I knew Shelly was his second wife.”

  “She was a widow with money who moved here after she lost her husband. By then he was respectable enough to marry.”

  “And she never was pregnant with husband number one, was she?”

  “No, but she’s had two since marrying Bo.”

  “Maybe that will happen to me.”

  “Quit worrying. We do all we can.”

  She put down some dishes and hugged him. “I know, but that doesn’t make it easier.”

  “Hey, get dressed and come along with me. You love to visit with Millie.”

  “Thanks, I will do that. Who else is going?”

  “Cole and Jesus.”

  “I’ll be ready.” She rushed off to change.

  One of her house girls brought the coffeepot over. Her name was Oleta. “Señor, you want more coffee?”

  “No. Thanks anyway.”

  “May I ask a question, señor?”

  “Certainly. What is it?”

  “Is there an hombre named Salty down there where you go today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you see if his foot is broken?”

  “Sure. But I am sure he is sound or I would have heard about it.”

  She looked around like she wanted no one to hear. “He promised he’d come back and see me.”

  Chet nodded. “You want me to remind him?”

  “Oh no. If he don’t want to, I sure don’t want to see him, either.”

  “Can I say, ‘Oleta sends her blessings’?”

  “Only if he still wears my cross. It has some black stones and a cross on it. If he wears it, he still remembers me.”

  “I will check.”

  She crossed herself. “Gracias, patrón.”

  “No. I am Chet, not patrón.”

  “Excuse me. You know that Julie and I are very proud to work here. Your wife is so generous to both of us—more like a mother than a boss. We grew up here on this ranch and this has been a fine place to live, but when she became head of the house she brought us both inside because we helped her with schooling the children. Now we run it for her and we appreciate you and her confidence in us.”

  Julie joined her, nodding her head. “Chet, we will get your name right. We really appreciate all you do for the people of this ranch.”

  “It is a wonderful ranch because of the people who work here and how they all pitch in.”

  Bo soon joined them for breakfast.

  * * *

  Lisa rode horseback with the four men to Tom’s house at the base of the mountain. They teased her about things and she laughed most of the way down the steep grade to the base.

  Chet told them about his sister, who ran the household back then at the start, and how May’s two boys growing up caught fish out of the Verde River for Sis to cook, and when they took her the huge carp she threw it out. “Why, those two about disowned her over doing that.”

  “I heard you fed the Indians down here, too?” Lisa asked.

  “They had a sorry Indian agent when we first came to the area. I fed the Indians and he got mad and threatened me. I went and saw General Crook at the fort up here and he got that straight. Why, those people and their children had no food. Some big officials came down from Washington, DC, after General Crook spoke to them, and when they saw the mess, they removed that agent.”

  “Yesterday I was glad to see Hampt’s arm was nearly healed,” Jesus said.

  “Yes. He’s fine. Hated he didn’t get in with the chase we had getting those rustlers rounded up.”

  Cole agreed. “I’d pick him anytime to be on my team. That big guy is tough when you make him mad.”

  “Bo, you’ve missed out on lots of great adventures the three of us have had together,” Chet said.

  Like he’d never catch up with them, Bo shook his head. “Now, I would not have gone off on that rope to get inside that cave, dangling thousands of feet over rock piles below, but I’d damn sure liked to have been on the receiving end of the final count. Maybe had me some of that armor.”

  “It was one helluva find.”

  “I’d say so. I think we told you we never found anything else up there.”

  “No sign of the mine that gave them the rubies?” Bo looked at the men for an answer.

  They all shook their heads.

  Cole spoke up. “We never saw even a speck of those rubies anywhere we went. Not any color in the creeks. That place holds its secrets tight.”

  “How did those Spaniards find them?”

  “Hell, Bo, you couldn’t see all the country that is inside the boundaries of that strip in over a lifetime. There were no maps to show where they got it in those books, either.”

  “Isolated and dry,” Cole added.

  Salty greeted them when they arrived down there. Chet recalled the girl’s words: “If he still wears my cross.” The stones were black, and he could see that Salty wore something around his neck, inside of his shirt. “Oh yes, Oleta said to say hi to you.”

  Salty grinned big. “Tell her I am coming in a few days. Tom has had lots of work for me down here.”

  “Maybe Lisa should send her down here?”

  “No, then I would get nothing done.”

  The crew laughed.

  The meeting with Bo and the five recipients was held in Tom’s living room. Bo introduced himself and explained they were going to soon have lots of money, and the danger of losing it loomed over them.

  “Don’t make loans to friends. You will never get it back. We know now it will be over fifty thousand for each of your shares.

  “Wow.”

  “Land swindlers are all over. Only buy land with a clear title. Do it with an honest broker or a banker you trust handling the paperwork. Don’t drink it up. Don’t spend it on wild women. I’d like to talk to any of you interested about buying a place of your own.”

  “I don’t want a ranch of my own yet,” the cook Tad Newman said. “If I can stay here and work the roundup cooking I will be fine. Tom said Mr. Tanner at the bank would treat me fair and maybe someday I will go back to Sonora and ranch there.”

  “Good thinking,” Chet said. “You can have that place as long as you like.”

  Eddie Maine, the cook’s helper, raised his hand next. “My grandmother lives near Nogales. She needs a windmill to pump a storage tank full so she does not have to pull up buckets. Nana raised me, so could one of you help me get that done?”

  Chet told him yes. “Eddie, we can find some honest folks to do that down there and have her running water in her house, even.”

  Eddie smiled. “I’d sure appreciate that.”

  “Billy Bob, what about you?” Chet asked.

  “I been thinking my mom and dad ain’t got a tombstone back in Decatur, Texas. Would you all help me get one up?”

  Tom spoke up. “Yes, we can help you and get that done. Nice thought on your part. Salty, what have you thought about?”

  “You know. I bet Chet knows, too. I’d like permission to build a house on either place if some gal says yes, for us to live in it together. You can have it when I leave. I hope that isn’t soon.”

  Chet smiled. “I bet she’d want to live up at Preskitt Valley.”

  “Probably. Don’t tell her—I want to shock her so she can’t say no. But would that work?”

  “Salty, Tom and I would approve it at either ranch.”

  Salty smiled
big. “On top?”

  “Either place. Let us know.”

  “I’ll sure do that.”

  They rode back from the Verde to the Valley ranch. Bo thanked them and rode on to town.

  In the kitchen, Lisa spoke to Oleta. “He’s wearing it and said when he got caught up on his work to tell you he would come to see you.”

  The girl blushed. “We should have taught him how to write, like we did the children.”

  “He can’t write?” Lisa asked her.

  “I don’t think so.”

  They both looked at Chet.

  “Something else you must teach him, then.”

  Oleta said, “I can do that.”

  “Good. He is in your hands. He can break horses up here if you like.”

  “If you promise not to tell him I told you about his not writing.”

  “I won’t say a word.”

  “I am so grateful.”

  Soon after that, Salty moved to the upper ranch with the ranch’s unbroken two-year-old colts. The foreman, Vance, gave him two large teenage boys who were tickled to death, to help him. They came off weeding and watering the large patch of frijoles they raised that fed every ranch member. Chet figured they may have been even happier than Oleta was over the move.

  He knew that those boys would work harder at their new jobs.

  Late in the week he and Lisa went into Preskitt to check on things—get the mail—and for Lisa to get some dress material for what she called pending. The weather was still nice but the days had gotten shorter and fall was coming. The couple Betty and Leroy Sipes up at Oak Creek Canyon with the orchard, berries, and summer garden had brought by several bushels of apples for the last time that year and said they had them all picked.

  Chet went by the mercantile and talked to his friend Ben Ivor.

  Ben rose from behind the desk. They shook hands and then he shook his head before he said, “I have three of your mowers for next year in Fort Worth. Three are in El Paso, and six they shipped to Iowa.”

  “Well, we have all winter to round them up.” Chet took a chair while he was laughing.

  Ben shook his head. “They must not have maps. Where do they think Preskitt is next to?”

  “I have no idea. But I may need to up the number by another half dozen.”

  “How much hay do you have to cut?”

  “When Bo bought all these homesteads, they were cleared of sagebrush and grew tall grasses when people quit farming them. My men fenced them to keep the range cows out and now I have hay farms all over the north county.”

  “How many have you got?”

  “Those farms? I think maybe thirty of them.”

  “A hundred sixty times thirty is forty-eight hundred acres.”

  Chet agreed. “We have lots of hay to mow. Shane and his bunch cut lots of hay over at Hackberry. The Verde Ranch must have a few hundred acres. Toby had all those old homesteads and his own fenced land became hay fields. Spencer has maybe three sections. Sarge gets his hay now from Toby. They have to haul hay up to the sawmill for the timber-hauling horses and mules. And Hampt makes lots of good hay—most of his is in alfalfa.”

  “Makes me the biggest mower salesman in the West.”

  After a good cordial laugh they shook hands and Ben said he’d check on their delivery being there before spring.

  “I’ll tell Kathrin I said hi to you from her. She never got over you bringing her down here from Utah. She claims you saved her life. And she sure made a great wife for me.”

  “It all ended good.”

  Late in the afternoon, he picked up Lisa and her purchases, and with those loaded in the buckboard, he set the team in a trot for home. It had clouded up some during the afternoon. As they were coming through some woods three armed riders busted out of the thin pine cover.

  Shocked by the pop of a pistol, Chet handed Lisa the reins and reached for the Winchester rifle in the scabbard on the buckboard’s dashboard. “They’re shooting at us. Get us the hell out of here.”

  He levered in a cartridge and knew with the rough ride of the buckboard he’d be lucky to hit any of the three. He struggled to hook his right arm over the seat back, to steady the long gun. The rough ride made his taking aim through the sights a real chore. But he shot anyway. If nothing else, maybe he’d stop them if he hit one.

  “What do they want?” she shouted at him, and whipped the horses with the lines to make them go faster.

  “I have no idea. Maybe they want us dead.” He squeezed off another shot. They were worthless attempts. He made two quick shots without much sign of success.

  “Make them go faster, Lisa. Head for the Black Canyon Stage office, the next dip in the road. They may help defend us.”

  “I’ve got it.”

  Over the swaying buckboard bench seat, he fired the rifle again and again back at their attackers, but it was only in defense. Hitting anyone or anything would have been by sheer luck.

  She shouted at him, “The stage people are coming out, Chet, and they’re armed.”

  “Keep going. Get to the stage building. Those outlaws have reined up but we need more cover and distance from them.”

  “Mr. Byrnes, what did they want with you two?” wide-eyed Ed Samson, the stage line manager, asked after they finally pulled up. He helped Lisa down from her seat.

  Still upset by the attack, Chet couldn’t see any sign of them. “Damned if I know.”

  “Where are your guards at?”

  He shook his head and jumped down to hug his upset wife. “We didn’t need them until a while back.”

  “Did anyone recognize who they were?” Lisa asked.

  No one had recognized any of their pursuers.

  “My men are going to saddle horses and see you two get home,” Samson said. “You are too good a customer of our stage line to let you go home unprotected.”

  “Only up to Jesus Martinez’s ranch. He will get us home. Thanks.”

  “You ever see them bandits before?”

  “No, and I didn’t see them well enough to recognize them, bouncing around and shooting at them the way I was.” He kissed his wife’s forehead. “Thank God you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine. I’m mad they chased us here, but grateful these men were here. Thanks.”

  Samson shook his head. “They must have been desperate for money. They damn sure picked on the wrong guy, getting after you.”

  Chet agreed. “I’ll find out who they were one day and make them wish they never tried that trick on us.”

  “Here come my men on horseback. Joey, he just needs guards to Jesus’s place.”

  “Whatever. Mr. Byrnes, you didn’t know them?”

  “No. They were wearing masks and they were too far back, when she went to driving those horses, to see them clear enough, except they sure did want us.”

  “Thanks,” Lisa said after Chet put her back on the seat and climbed in himself. “You ever need a favor, come get me,” Chet added to Samson.

  “You all be more careful,” Samson said. “We need your business.”

  Chet laughed and agreed, clucked to his team, and they were off.

  When they got to Jesus’s place, he came out on the porch to greet them.

  Chet thanked the stage company workers, offered them money that they declined, and they headed back. Jesus’s wife, Anita, holding the baby in her arms, came out to talk to Lisa.

  “Why were those men riding with you?” Jesus asked.

  “Some outlaws got after us after we left town and chased us to the stagecoach office.”

  “Huh?”

  “I am not kidding. Three masked men busted out of the woods, shooting at us. She drove and I emptied the Winchester at them. Samson and those two men rushed out and ran them off.”

  “You shoot any of them?”

  “Going down that rough road at least forty miles an hour. Not likely.”

  “No idea who they were?”

  “They were masked and too far back.”

 
“I’ll get my gun and ride home with you. What did you promise us?”

  “I’d never go alone again.”

  “Good. Promise us again.”

  “I do.”

  “Jesus, we just ran into town and were on our way home,” Lisa said in Chet’s defense.

  “Lisa, you two need protection. There are too many outlaws still running all over.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When they arrived back at the house, Jesus with them, they drew a crowd in the ranch yard. Someone rang the big school bell before Chet could stop them, and in no time, they had everyone there, including Cole and Salty.

  Jesus took charge, standing in the buckboard bed. “This afternoon three gunmen shot at and chased the boss man and Lisa into the Black Canyon Stage yard. He didn’t recognize any of them but in the morning, some of us are going that direction and find out who they were.

  “Now, everyone who works here knows how important for our jobs the lives of these two are to all of us. So, if we don’t find them tomorrow, you all be listening for talk. Someone will brag they did that when whiskey loosens their tongues, and I want their names or descriptions. I don’t want any of you to try and take them. We are the pistoleros on this ranch, but we sure may need your help to find them. Thanks that we are all safe tonight.”

  He began to clap and so did the family.

  Cole was standing next to Chet by then. “Any idea who they were?”

  Chet shook his head. “Lisa was driving the buckboard so hard I never got a good shot off at them.”

  Cole laughed and hugged her. “Good for you, girl. No idea why they wanted you two?”

  “No. I can tell you right now I have never, even under Indian raids, been as shocked as when those three guys wearing masks came busting out of the pines firing their pistols at us.”

  “They are fine,” Cole said to his wife as she and Rocky joined them.

  “Good. We heard Jesus’s speech. He’s becoming a leader, isn’t he?”

  “No doubt,” Chet said. “Rocky, how are you?”

  “A little sore.”

  “What happened?”

  “That North Rim colt kicked me.”

  Lisa hugged him. “I am sorry.”

  “No, ma’am. He’s my horse now and I’ll break him of doing that.”

  Lisa was amused. “Yes, Chet Byrnes Number Two. I bet you will break him.”