Once a Ranger

by Dusty Richards

  With some effort, the older man pushed out in the sunshine and checked his teeth. “Five years old?”

  “My guess.”

  “I never saw as big and powerful a paint horse before. Where in hell did he come from?”

  “I never asked. I needed a horse to go on with.”

  “Mind if I ask what he cost?”

  “My worn-out gelding and sixty dollars.”

  “I’d give you two horses and a hundred dollars for him.”

  “No, I’ve rode him a couple of hours and despite his hide, I like him.”

  “Some horse, huh?”

  “He’s a little broncy, but I don’t think anyone rode him much lately.”

  The liveryman was still circling and admiring his horse. He took off his weather-beaten Western hat and scratched the thatch of gray hair on the top his head. “I sure never saw one like him before.”

  Guthrey ignored his interest in the horse. “Did my men chasing those outlaws look haggard?”

  “No. Determined as all get-out, but they looked all right. Guess you’re worried about them?”

  “I need to catch them. Is that vendor across the street clean enough to cook me some food?”

  The man nodded.

  Guthrey hitched his horse. “I’ll get me something to eat.”

  “I’ll watch him.”

  “Thanks.”

  The Mexican woman made him a large flour tortilla and wrapped some mashed bean mix inside it for ten cents. It was large and he paid her two dimes, drawing a smile on her wrinkled face as she accepted his money.

  The liveryman filled his canteen at the pump while Guthrey ate the hot, spicy burrito, and then the man hung the canteen on the saddle. “I’ve heard about you. You won a special election over there in Crook County, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. My name’s Guthrey.”

  “You and your men are tough and damned determined, crossing county lines to get outlaws. My name’s Earl Stone. I’m proud to have met you.”

  Guthrey agreed with a nod and shook his hand. Some other curious men came across the street from the saloon.

  “Who’s he?” one asked, inspecting Cochise.

  “New sheriff in Crook County, after some stage robbers,” Earl said.

  “Why, you ain’t got no authority up here,” the man scoffed.

  “Don’t worry about it. Unless you break the law in my county. Then there ain’t no imaginary lines going to stop me from arresting you.” His meal devoured, Guthrey wiped his mouth, then he led his mount to the water trough for another drink.

  “He’s after them six in uniforms rode through here,” an onlooker said to the others.

  “I hope you catch and hang them kind.”

  “I’ll try to arrest them and let the judge hang them.” He went to the right side and mounted his horse. Cochise skidded sideways out on the street until Guthrey got him under control with the bit.

  “Thanks, Earl.” He let the big horse single-foot out of town.

  * * *

  BY NIGHTFALL HE reached Florence Junction, a stage stop, and was reunited with his men, who he found eating supper.

  “It’s the boss,” Noble said, and the three rose to invite him to join them.

  “Sit down. You guys are hard to catch.”

  “We shut down,” Baker said. “They sent four men out to meet us a couple miles west of here. I figured they were ready to fight and they had the advantage of cover. So we decided rather than tangle with them, we’d come back here, eat, and consider a plan.”

  “Sounds like a good decision,” Guthrey said. Then he told the short Mexican lady who came out to wait on him that he wanted the same meal and coffee that his companions had.

  She agreed and shuffled off to get it for him.

  Seated on the bench beside Dan, Guthrey clapped him on the shoulder. “You three making it all right?”

  “Sure. Our asses are getting raw, but we’re all right,” Noble said. “They tried this business of sending back those four men to stop us. But we saw it, and Teddy knew it was a move to cover their ass like for a retreating army.”

  “Lucky you figured it out. Where in hell are they heading?”

  While waiting to bring his food, the Mexican woman lit a few lamps. The sun was going down.

  Baker shook his head. “They asked about the distance to Camp McDowell when they rode through here. That big mountain out there is called Superstition. The army outpost and reservation is about thirty miles north of here. Two rivers converge there, the Verde from the north and Salado from the east.”

  “Why did they want to go there, I wonder.”

  “Ain’t no telling, but they’ve got a plan. We’ve been learning bits and pieces about them along the way. Two of them are ex-sergeants. Two are just plain soldiers and two are former officers. One was a colonel. Word is they were all court-martialed for raping Indian women captives and then selling them in Mexico for whores in the slave trade. Their trial was held at the army post outside El Paso. They were thrown out of the army and each one sentenced to prison for ten years, but they all escaped.”

  “Nice guys,” Guthrey said as the woman delivered his bowl of chili and beans with some flour tortillas on a plate.

  “Gracias,” he said, and she nodded.

  “Where else did they try to meet you head-on?”

  “I guess it was before we got to San Carlos,” Baker said. “Dan noticed them and we held up. I shot at them with my Sharps rifle, and since we weren’t in their rifle range, when the lead reached close enough to them, they left in a hurry.”

  “You know they aren’t through trying everything to stop you?”

  “Yeah,” Noble said. “They know now we’re determined. I’m sure they’ll try to stop us.”

  Baker set down his large spoon. “They are like a machine when they set up. One man moves and another covers him and they come on like hornets. I never was in the army but they’re more like that than ordinary men.”

  “They sound efficient enough. We need to be damn careful from here on.”

  “Could one or two of us sneak up on them tonight?” Baker asked.

  Noble shook his head. “Let them head for McDowell in the morning. Get a good night’s sleep here and rest our horses. They can’t get too far away from us without remounts.”

  “Tell me about it,” Guthrey said. “My ranch horse was done in at San Carlos and I’m riding a big, stout paint stallion.”

  “Really?” Dan smiled at him.

  “He’s tough but he’s also a loud color.”

  Baker smiled. “Just what you need. An outlaw that knew you had him could sure be warned you were coming.”

  They all laughed.

  Then Cochise gave a loud whistle outside about something, and they scrambled for their guns getting up. Guthrey pointed for Baker to take the back way out while he headed for the front door. Noble blew out the lights.

  Guthrey could hear the beat of horse hooves, and three riders came by slinging lead at the stage depot. But their aim was wild and Guthrey got one shot at them before they were gone. More shots out back, and he sent Noble to go check on Baker.

  “Will they come back?” Dan asked.

  “I doubt it. It was hit-and-run, and had the stallion not whistled, we’d’a been sitting ducks. What have you got?” he asked Noble, who came in from the kitchen.

  “Baker shot one of them. Bring a light.”

  “Dan, keep an eye out here. Be ready; they may try to come back.”

  He agreed and Guthrey took a candle lamp from the woman. On the back steps he saw Baker squatted down by a body on the ground.

  “He still alive?’

  Baker nodded.

  Guthrey, after checking the night around them, knelt down beside the man. In the lamplight the man made a pained face.
r />   “Who are you?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  “You’ve been shot, huh?”

  “Yeah. Hurts like hell.” He gritted his teeth.

  “You don’t start answering questions, you’re going to die right here. I’m going to let your life drain out of you right here in this gravel.”

  “All right. All right. My name’s Bob Denton.”

  “You were court-martialed in Texas for selling Indian women as slaves.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You held up the stage with all the money. Now, why in the hell didn’t you go to Mexico?”

  “The colonel has a plan.”

  “You know that plan?”

  He shook his head.

  Guthrey rose and looked around. “Can we hire someone to take him to a doctor and then to jail in Florence?”

  The man who managed the stage stop said, “One of my men can take him to Florence and do that.”

  “I can pay him twenty dollars. I’ll write out the instruction for his arrest.”

  “We’ll get a buckboard around here and some blankets.”

  Guthrey thanked him. Then he turned to Baker. “What happened?”

  “He shot at me when I got to the back door. I returned fire and shot him.”

  Guthrey asked, “Someone see his horse? We may need it.”

  Dan spoke up. “He’s over by the corral. I’ll get him.”

  Guthrey held up the light to examine the horse. He was a well-muscled Morgan-bred horse under an army McClellan saddle. Impressive. They obviously were well mounted, which explained why they’d made such good distances.

  “Where were you going, Denton?” he asked the wounded outlaw.

  “Damn if I know. I just follow orders.”

  “I don’t believe you, and I’m tempted to kick you in that wounded leg.”

  “I swear I don’t know. They never said.”

  Back inside, Guthrey wrote a note on the back of a wanted poster the stage stop man gave him:

  To whom it may concern

  This man is wanted by the U.S. Army. You are entitled to the reward they offer for him. If you can’t do that I will have him picked up and we will try him for shooting a stagecoach guard and robbery.

  Sheriff Phillip Guthrey

  Crook County Sheriff, Soda Springs, Arizona Territory

  “Give that to the law officials down there.”

  “He will do that.”

  Guthrey turned to his men. “We’ll take that horse with us. Let’s get some sleep and ask this lady to have breakfast ready for us at sunup, and then we’ll follow them some more. An opportunity will open for us to get them.”

  Everyone agreed.

  TEN

  AT DAWN, THEY finished their meal and the horses were saddled. On the back of another wanted poster, the stage man drew them the stage route around the great wall formed by Superstition Mountain. He pointed to the forks of the roads where the stages went to Mesa and on to the Hayden Flour Mill, then Phoenix, and the other road went to Fort McDowell from the north side of the mountain’s base. His map also showed the way north to Rye and another site above there called Payson. Then the trails split to go to Fort Apache or north to the settlements on the northern east-to-west stage route.

  They rode out and Guthrey’s men teased him some about his paint horse, but it was his horse’s whistle that had signaled the raid. Overnight, the wounded bandit had been taken to Florence and handled by the law down there, the stage man reported.

  The day’s heat began to rise and they reached the next stage stop at Apache Junction by midafternoon. They learned the outlaws had not stopped there, but rode by in a long trot. Five men instead of six now, which encouraged Guthrey to decide a few more needed to be separated from the outfit and they’d be vulnerable to him and his men. They never sighted them that day as they made camp across the Salt River on the north bank and ate dry crackers and jerky for supper.

  After all their hot, sweaty days in the saddle, the men bathed in the sunset-bloodied Salado, or Salt River. But they were on the gang’s trail and the horse apples were fresh on the rough wagon tracks that led northward.

  Guthrey felt an opportunity to overtake them would soon appear. He was ready, as they drew for night guard shifts, to end this pursuit. Up before dawn, they made coffee and gnawed on beef jerky, saddled their horses, and headed for the reservation and the camp of soldiers stationed there.

  An officer at Fort McDowell told him they had not noticed the outlaws passing, so they must have avoided the fort on purpose.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Moss. These men were court-martialed for selling Indian women into slavery.”

  “I know about that case. If I can be of service, tell me how I can help.”

  “I realize that rules now keep you from offering me men. We’ll get them.”

  “Sounds unreasonable, but those are my orders.”

  “Thanks.” He reined Cochise for the road to Rye and rallied his men.

  Both Noble and Baker felt sure they were on the track of the outlaws. They knew the hoof prints well and moved northward in a trot. The wagon road wound higher into the boulder-strewn mountains, and they were forced to climb the steep grades at a walk to save their horses. Late in the day they reached a flatter surface. Guthrey went higher up and used his field glasses to study the road. He spotted the five-man formation and pack animals in a tight group, trotting no more than a quarter mile ahead.

  He bailed on his horse and rushed off the mountain. The big horse half slid and half scrambled, but, sure-footed, he landed at the bottom and surged for the others.

  “Let’s take them. Time to shock them with a charge.”

  The others rushed after him with their guns drawn.

  The outlaws looked back, shocked at first, and waited for orders. The posse closed in and soon began shooting at them. Two men in green went down and another dove off his horse to save the packhorses’ leads. One of the officers was spurring his horse to escape. Guthrey set Cochise after him. Like a rocket, the big horse charged into a furious race after the man and his mount. Cochise closed the distance on the flat road, and Guthrey holstered his .45, then undid the lariat on his saddle as he charged on.

  He made a loop, swung it wide. It settled over the man’s shoulders, and before he could free himself, Guthrey jerked his slack and turned the big horse aside. The man screamed but was unhorsed and disappeared in the cloud of dust when Guthrey stopped his horse. He whirled Cochise around and rode to face the man as he wound up his rope.

  “My arm is broken.”

  “You had a chance to surrender. That’s your fault. Get on your feet and don’t try anything.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m sheriff of Crook County, where you held up the stage.”

  “You can’t arrest me up here.” Holding his hurt arm and grumbling, he started back for the others, walking in front of Guthrey.

  “I can arrest you in Mexico City or Paris. It might not stick there, but it will here. My men have been in pursuit of you since the robbery.”

  “We should have eliminated them when we discovered them.”

  Guthrey shook his head, reloading his Colt .45 and keeping his eye on the man walking ahead of his horse. “I would have tracked you down anyway.”

  “That’s your thoughts.”

  “Pretty damn good ones, weren’t they?” Guthrey saw the others were either handcuffed or lying prone on the ground.

  Baker met him. “One man is dead. One wounded and the other two are all right. What’s wrong with him?”

  “Broke his arm when I jerked him off his horse. He says he should have killed the three of you.”

  “Yeah, he damn sure should have.” Baker checked the man for weapons and then shoved him roughly toward the others.

 
“Hey,” Dan said over his discovery of the loot in the panniers. “We have a fortune here in these packs, Guthrey. Let’s go to Mexico and celebrate.”

  “Let’s go home. Cally’s worried about us. Right, Noble?”

  “Yes, I bet she is. That little lady is plumb worried by now.”

  There was some gathering of the stock. The prisoners were chained to their horses. Dan led them. The other wounded man had a small injury, and the dead man was wrapped in a blanket and tied over a horse. Even the broken-armed colonel rode in that line. Noble led their pack animals, and Baker rode guard, cradling a rifle in his arms like Guthrey did.

  They put them in the brig at Fort McDowell overnight. They buried the dead outlaw, whose name was T. J. Goings, in the cemetery. The lieutenant had the army camp cooks really feed them, and everyone enjoyed it. His telegraph man sent a message to Soda Springs telling Guthrey’s office and all the families, like Cally and Baker’s wife, that they were all right and bringing back the prisoners and loot.

  “You got anyone needs to be let known?” Guthrey asked Dan.

  He shook his head. “The news will beat us home.”

  Guthrey gave him a shake of his shoulders. “Tough job, wasn’t it?”

  “Boy, yes. I may sleep for a week when we get back.”

  “We’ll be there in a while. We get back to Florence we’ll pick up the other one of the gang, if he’s alive, and then in three days after that we should be home.”

  “Please don’t have another crisis for a few days. All right?”

  Guthrey chuckled. “I’ll try to space them out.”

  Guthrey had never met Baker’s wife, but he figured she’d be glad when he got back. He would make it a point to meet her the first chance he got. His main crew would split any reward they received for the return of the wanted men. The three men plus Zamora, who stayed home and did all that work in their absence, would get the money. It could easily be a thousand dollars or more to split. That would help all of them.

  They picked up Denton in Florence and thanked the sheriff. Guthrey offered to pay the man for his keep but the heavy, mustached man shook his head. “That’s on me. Good luck to you. You’re a tough force to have gotten them.”