Sharpshooter

by Dusty Richards

  “It had been planned. Roundup is over and we’re headed north in a few days.”

  “You better eat. Those men will be anxious to get on the road.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thanks.”

  They left thirty minutes later, headed west. They stopped for only a short while at the Verde Ranch. Tom was pleased that roundup, across the board, went so well. He’d bought some high-priced Hereford herd sires in Kansas for the purebred herd and had a new hauler. He hoped this guy didn’t eat one moving them out to him like the last guy did. He’d been a damn expensive meal, as far as Tom was concerned.

  When they reached the top place, Jesus set out for home, in a long lope, on a fresh horse Vance loaned. Lisa and the house girls were all excited to hear how the other ranches were doing with their roundups.

  “Fine. We didn’t go clear over to see Thurman and the brothers but we saw everyone else east.”

  “You have been in the saddle a lot,” Lisa said, and kissed him. “Boy, are we glad you’re back.”

  “What did I do wrong now?”

  “Nothing. Just making a fuss about you being home in time to leave for the strip.”

  Chet held up two fingers. “I have that long to get ready. Is Salty here or is he going to join us going by Flagstaff?”

  “He’s up there. But he is going along with us.”

  “Where are the kids?” He cranked his head around to look for them.

  “They’re running late. They’ll be here any minute.”

  “It is about dark, isn’t it?”

  “They have a surprise.”

  “They just rode in,” one of the house girls reported.

  Under her breath, Lisa said, “Act surprised.”

  “Oh—sure.”

  “He made it back in one piece,” Adam said, then they laughed.

  “Come down here, Dad. We have your late birthday present, or it might be an early one.” Rocky stepped off a saddle in a sweep of his chaps. Pointing to it, he said, “I was just breaking it in a little.”

  “You mean they finally got it made? They must be out of work.”

  “No, they fit this one in,” Renny said. “Looks great, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. Hey, let me give you all a hug. This is certainly nice. I’ll enjoy it.”

  After his hug, they scrambled up the stairs, washed up, and took places at the large circular table. Chet said the blessing and then they ate supper. It was good to get real home cooking after their whirlwind trip. Everything looked fine out there with the spring flush of grass getting up. The conversation at the table ranged from the threesome’s hoeing the frijole rows to irrigation of alfalfa.

  His young farmers were ready to ride out and be cowhands or at least horseback adventurers for a while. Hampt and May came by on the final night before they left to visit with them and wish them good luck. Chet knew his ranch foreman would have liked to have gone along—but he felt he needed someone steady at home in his absence.

  * * *

  Up before dawn, Jesus had gone over the supply list, checking what was loaded, and agreed they had all they needed. Leading a string of packhorses, they rode out from under the crossbar for the Verde Ranch in the predawn. Not one horse bucked or even acted up—too damn good to be true, Chet decided.

  Midmorning, they reached the lower place. Tad Newman, the head cook, his helper Eddie Maine, and the head wrangler, Eldon Grimes, were all ready to ride.

  Before he rode out, Chet shook Tom’s hand, and his foreman wished him good luck. Victor’s wife, who was Adam’s stepmother, was introduced to Renny and she wished them a good time.

  “Next time you win a big race I want to be there,” she told her. The word was out clear down there. Chet laughed.

  A little red-faced, Renny nodded and promised her she would invite her if she had time.

  Lisa spoke to Millie, who promised her she’d be up looking after her house in a few hours.

  They rode north across the valley and red rock mountains that clustered in the valley.

  Late afternoon they camped in the pines on the north rim of the Verde. They even had spooked up four elk. Renny’s first time to see one of them. She was impressed by their size.

  By the time they had the supper dishes done, it was bedtime, and no one complained about that. Next evening they rode past the stage line offices, and Cole’s wife made them stop.

  She went past Rocky and slapped him on his chap-covered leg. “Things all right, brother?”

  “Yes, ma’am. This is Renny. She won the race Sunday.”

  “Way to go. Nice to meet you. I need to catch Chet. You all don’t have to fix supper tonight or breakfast, either. My crew is feeding you.”

  A cheer for her went up. She caught up with Chet. “My people will stable your horses and unsaddle them. They will be under lock and key and I have tents in case it rains.”

  “You are spoiling my crew,” Chet said. “Thanks. You meet Renny?”

  “Yes. My son introduced me.”

  “You must’ve raised him right.”

  Everyone laughed but Rocky.

  Salty and Oleta joined them for the meal. He asked if she could go along. Chet told her she was very welcome.

  “See, I told you so,” he said to her, and received the side of her hand on his arm.

  Before the meal was over, Cole joined them, lamenting he could not go along, that he was jealous of them going up there. “Find me a nice ruby I can have cut and set into a ring.”

  “Why didn’t you take one out that first time?” Chet asked.

  “I never thought about it.”

  “You hear about our new member?” Chet asked him.

  “No.”

  “Renny, this is Cole Emerson. He runs the stage line east and west and the telegraph wire.”

  “Nice to meet you. Rocky told me all you do.”

  “She won the open amateur horse race Sunday at the fairgrounds.”

  “That is wonderful. Teach these two boys how to ride while you are up there, will you?”

  She was laughing and shaking her head too hard to answer him.

  “I knew he would say something like that,” Rocky told her in disgust.

  Jamie Meadows joined them that afternoon. He reported they got along fine at roundup and he had close to nineteen hundred head of cows. Said they were amazed at the number of cows they found and yearling stock.

  “Do you imagine that was to keep his taxes down? Most counties charge a dollar a head in taxes,” Chet asked him.

  “By damn, that’s probably what he was doing.”

  “Thurman wouldn’t ever have done that. He was too straitlaced.”

  “Honesty is not a bad way,” Chet told him.

  “No, I agree. It is hard to believe a man would cheat that much for that little.”

  Chet thanked Jamie for coming on this trip and helping him buy the ranch. They discussed moving some of those cows to other outfits in the fall. He thought it would help that range a lot.

  The meal was done well and Chet thanked Valerie. So was breakfast, and after it, they headed east to go around the mountains and then head north. Chet reminded them about the thieves and rustlers at that last jumping-off place on the Little Colorado River ferry, their next stopover. They promised not to let them have a thing.

  This time he allowed for three days to reach Lee’s Ferry and the Englishwoman who ran it. He used the entire short stopover to make sure all the pack saddles were properly on their horses. But the whole time she clucked at his heels, like a scolding hen, about what must be done about the numerous outlaws and gangs roaming the strip.

  Away from hearing her at last and on the road, Lisa rode in and told him he had his lecture for the day.

  “Well, thank God it is over.”

  The second day they reached Joseph Lake and the store. Chet and most of the men spoke with the store owner, Rory Lincoln. He had no new reports on criminal activity over the winter and no new clues on the murder of the family. He knew the Logan
gang were somewhere in the strip but he had no idea where they might be.

  “I guess we will go down to that cabin and search some more. No telling what we might find. You learn anything, I will pay for any information on anything we need to know.”

  “If you can’t find some more treasure, I hope, at least, you can settle this once and for all.”

  “That is why we are here.”

  The next day they rode south and two days later were perched on the North Rim. The cabin was still standing and the cow herd had calved. Plans were made to brand them with Michael Meadows’s MM iron. But they’d do that before they’d leave.

  “I dread having to drive them out of here someday,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “We busted our butts getting that handful up here. Nothing would do but get them up here. Now the family is dead. Damn it. Excuse me. I’m not over it even now.” He went off to pull himself together.

  That hurt Chet, too. The kids had ridden off on a short horseback ride to see more country. He warned them to be watchful. The rest sat on some leftover logs and discussed what they should do next.

  Salty started in, “Fixing that stage line I met a man who prospected all over for those rubies and he found them. He told me that at the beginning of time, when volcanoes were losing their caps a long time back, they blew molten rubies out of a pipelike structure and spewed them all over a small area. If you ever found one you might find a wagonload or only a single one that some caveman dropped.

  “He said, if you find a field of them you’d be lucky. Most were small deposits shifted around by eruptions and blowouts. He said he found emeralds in veins. Like they were once in a layer of mud and set there until they were made into stones. He doubted the rubies and emeralds were all together, but were in separate deposits. The man had some rubies and emeralds to show me. But I think he found them west of Preskitt in the Williams River area. I never mentioned our find over here. He said someone found a lot of them somewhere in Arizona that the Spanish had hoarded.”

  Chet smiled. “That must be us. Thanks. Now we can go look for some more, huh?”

  “You want a few of us to go look for this guy everyone blames for everything? Last year they had moved from where Cole and Salty originally found them, right?” Cody added.

  “They’d moved from there and there was no trace, we could find, where they went. I don’t even know if they came back. If they murdered the family, probably not. But why don’t you and Salty take a couple packhorses and start crossing the country? You two are our best scouts. See if you can find them. But whatever you do, be careful.”

  “Can we take Oleta in case we find them, and she can come get you while we watch them?”

  “That might be dangerous. But you three decide.”

  Cody nodded. “Then we wouldn’t lose them if they pick up and move.”

  Jesus agreed with him. “She can outride most men.”

  “I simply don’t want one more person hurt.”

  So those three rode out to find the gang. Chet was sick that they had no more leads. The rest rode down to the cave site and discovered there were other ropes used to reach the cavern since they’d been there last.

  Rocky looked over the side and shook his head. “Dad said it was a long ways to the bottom if you fell or the rope broke. I’m not going down there.”

  Renny agreed.

  Adam shrugged. “I’d go if there was any treasure left.”

  Chet tried not to laugh at the three comments. He enjoyed them—they were funny and neat.

  * * *

  The next two days passed slowly. Adam was teaching his horse to crawl on his front knees, and the horse was learning it, to the rest of the party’s amazement. Chet saw the animal trainer in him immediately.

  “You train dogs?” he asked him.

  Adam wrinkled his nose. “They’re too easy.”

  “No, honestly. You train dogs, you can sell them for money.”

  “How much?”

  “How many tricks can they do?”

  “Oh, say, a dozen.”

  “If he’s real good, fifty bucks.”

  “Hmm, I might try that.”

  Adam made the horse get up and rear on his hind feet and circle like he was dancing. “What would he sell for?”

  “Two-fifty.”

  “He cost me seven-fifty. An Indian boy sold him to me. But I will look into trained dogs, too.”

  Lisa came out and stood, arms folded. “I made some bear tracks. Get the crew and I’ll put them out. Adam?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “What would you like to train next?”

  He smiled. “A mountain lion.”

  “You better wait a few years to do that.”

  “No, Miss Lisa. You need to start when they are born. Bottle-feed them.”

  She threw her head back to stare at the azure sky. “What does your mother think about that?”

  “Oh, she worries but said she didn’t doubt I could do that.”

  Lisa paused, bit her upper lip, and then shook her head. “Get the bear track experts in here.”

  Chet was laughing and shouting. “Miss Lisa has bear tracks ready. You don’t come, I get to eat them all.”

  “I bet that boy has more dare than you had as a kid growing up, Chet Byrnes.”

  “You’re right. I’d never thought about a mountain lion to break for a pet.”

  They both laughed.

  Jesus offered to take the crew fishing for trout the next day, in the side stream canyon.

  Lisa planned to go with him and the kids. The others, when they went last time, caught so many they wasted them. Chet and Billy Bob wanted to try the map to the ruby mine since there was no sign of his scouts that day. Tad, his helper, and the horse wrangler were going to keep camp.

  Chet told Jesus to keep a sharp eye out, and they left before dawn. Billy Bob had tried to recall the Three Sister rock formation they’d gone by last time. Then it did not mean much to them, but this time it had become the main deal on the hand-drawn map. Lisa packed them a lunch and they made good time searching the country northwest of the Meadowses’ ranch.

  By noon they located the Three Sister Buttes. It was obvious to Chet that they got more rain down near the canyon than they did farther north. They were out in the desert sagebrush and not much more. They ate their lunch and washed it down with canteen spring water.

  Lunch consumed, they studied the formation and there was no doubt there had been a cave at one time in the face of that butte. Chet traced the outline, but the roof had fallen in and closed the rest under a hundred tons of rocks and huge slabs.

  They crawled all over the formation. Billy Bob crawled into one small space and said he could feel air escaping from it. But it was too narrow for him to get in past that point.

  “We might drill some holes, set a blast off to open it more?”

  “I am game.”

  They rode back to camp to find Jesus and his party were back. Tad was frying fish and there was still no sign of his scouts. Those three might ride their horses into the ground to find that Logan gang.

  “You do any good?” Jesus asked.

  “We are going back to do some blasting. You see any fresh tracks?”

  “None. We may go with you tomorrow,” Jesus said.

  Behind his white apron Tad said, “I want to watch your blasting. Eddie, you are the cook tomorrow.”

  “If you die of the ptomaine, don’t blame me.”

  They all laughed.

  * * *

  The next day they left the horse wrangler, Eldon, and Eddie, the camp cook’s helper, and went to Three Sister Buttes with blasting powder, caps, lanterns, rock drills, and shovels. And lunch, of course.

  The rock they drilled was medium hard according to Tad, who had worked mining jobs. They all agreed they might blast away in the bowels of those buttes. By noontime they had the blasting bores in the rock, loaded the blasting powder, and exploded them, all lying facedown at a safe distance.

&nb
sp; The explosion rocked the ground they lay on and it was a while until the dust settled. Anxious to see what they had done, they had to wait until more was blown away by the soft, hot wind.

  “It’s bigger,” Billy Bob shouted. “But I won’t fit.”

  “Tie this rope around me and lower me in that hole,” Adam said to his father.

  “Let’s light it first with a lantern and see how deep it goes.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  The lantern illuminated the cavern and, top to bottom, it was large. Chet moved back as some bats flew out the new opening and flew away.

  “It won’t be peaches and cream in there,” he told his son.

  Adam wrinkled his nose. “I can see if it is worth making the hole bigger.”

  The rope tied on his waist, he backed inside trying to find a foothold in the wall. “Hand me that lantern so I can see something.”

  Renny did that. “Now what?”

  “It is six feet more to the floor. I’m fine, Dad.”

  Chet lowered him more, and Tad joined to help him. At last he was on the floor and the rope slacked.

  “Untie it from you. I am coming,” Renny said.

  “Bring your own light.”

  “I will.” Hand over hand, she hauled up the heavy rope. Then she stuck her head in the hole. “What’s down there?”

  “Oh my God—”

  Renny shook her head, frowning. “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “There are steamer trunks of gold coins down here. Hurry up. Red jewels. Turquoise. Silver.”

  She turned to shake her head at the others trying to see past her. “He’s either gone crazy on mine fumes or there are some treasure ships sunk down there.”

  Chet closed his eyes. “He found the Pinta and the Santa Maria, men.”

  “How are we going to get it out through that porthole?” Jesus asked, laughing.

  “We can make that door larger. But we will need a fleet to get it out of here.”

  “Lower me down there,” Renny said with the rope tied around her waist. “He’s too spellbound to tell you a thing. It’s just money.”

  Jesus and Tad lowered her into the great cavern.

  “Guys, you better go find several wagons,” she said up to them while holding her lantern head high. “No wonder they didn’t go back for the others in that cave. There’s a lot more here.”