Petticoat Ranch

by Mary Connealy

  Ranger Mitchell sidled up to Clay, pitching his voice low so the sound wouldn’t carry, “Where is he going?”

  Clay said in disbelief, “I noticed him just now.”

  Jackson grabbed his hat off his head and slammed it on the ground where he lay on his belly beside Clay. “We have this set up so no one gets hurt. I don’t want a grandstanding fool looking to put notches in his gun, charging those men.”

  Clay shook his head and wiped sweat off his brow. They’d been lucky the canyon opened on the east. The sheer bluffs gave the posse some much-needed shade as the sun lowered in the sky, but the day was hot and still, and keeping down to avoid a bullet warmed a man.

  Clay said, “Adam’s not after a reputation, he’s after revenge. He’s had it in him to even the score with this gang for weeks.”

  “I know his story, and I’ve seen his scars,” the ranger said. “I talked to him when you first got here. He said he was content to wait.”

  “I had a talk with him myself. I didn’t like what I was seeing in his eyes.” Clay lay, watching Adam slink like a shadow between slight depressions and whisper-thin sagebrush. Adam wore a white shirt, stained brown from being soaked with sweat, as he crawled on the ground. His body was nearly invisible against the coarse dirt. “But he convinced me he had himself under control.”

  The two of them watched, expecting a gunshot to ring out any second and leave Adam, with his meager protection, bleeding and dying in the Texas sunset. Adam continued forward as silent as a breeze, as fluid as trickling water. As mad as sin.

  “He’s good, isn’t he?” Clay blinked and Adam seemed to vanish. Even his black hair was coated now in the dust that came as a partner with the dry Texas heat. Then Adam moved and Clay could see him again.

  “Very good,” Tom Jackson replied with grudging respect.

  Clay became aware of the dozen other men who had formed an impenetrable wall along the front of the canyon. All of them watching. All of them silently rooting for Adam to get through the canyon opening alive. All of them fearing the worst.

  Adam reached the mouth of Sawyer Canyon and ducked behind the first good cover he’d had.

  Clay breathed a sigh of relief and looked across several other men to see Luther shaking his head. Luther looked away from Adam and caught Clay’s eye. The two of them shared a moment of regret. They knew what drove Adam to do this desperate thing. It would be bad for Adam if he managed to kill the lot of them. He’d carry this act of hatred like a burning stone in his soul for the rest of his life.

  “He’s in,” Jackson whispered.

  Clay looked back at the canyon. Adam had disappeared like a wisp of smoke on the air. They waited. Clay smelled the sweat of a dozen men strung tight as piano wire. He heard someone breathe raggedly, and it reminded him he’d been holding his own breath for a while. The canyon wasn’t a large one. The good place to cut a man down was right at the mouth. After that, a man had a fighting chance. The silence drew out long. Clay suddenly pushed himself to his knees. “He got through. I’m going to see if I can.”

  Jackson shoved Clay sideways. Only the crack of a gun being triggered stopped Clay from shoving back. He looked down the barrel of Jackson’s Winchester. “I’m not risking another man on such a reckless attack. Don’t even think about it.”

  Clay didn’t think the ranger would shoot him, but the heat of the day and the tension of the moment were taking their toll on everyone. He didn’t make any more sudden moves.

  “They’re gone!” Adam came running out of the canyon, no longer making the least attempt to hide himself.

  “They can’t be gone.” Sheriff Everett jumped to his feet, leaving cover behind in a way that proved he believed Adam, even though he denied it. “This is the only way out.”

  Adam stormed toward the group of men then passed straight through the line, heading for the horses.

  After one frozen moment, Clay started after him.

  “They’re gone,” Adam shouted without looking back or slowing down, “but their horses are still there!”

  “They climbed out?” Clay walked faster.

  Adam jerked his head in agreement. “It looks like they’ve been gone for hours. I thought there was something too neat about this.”

  Adam called back to Sheriff Everett, “They set you all up. They led you to this spot so they could tie up your whole posse while they made a clean getaway.”

  “Whitey would have told me if his plans changed. The men were coming in to do more than eat. They needed to check in with Whitey and Buff.” Sophie was the mother again. Not a fidgeting worrier who needed small children to keep her calm. “Girls, something’s happened to those men. Get into the crawl space. Now!”

  The girls didn’t hesitate. Beth threw back the rug and pulled up the trap door. Sally dropped into the dark hole in the floor, carrying Laura. Mandy went into the hidey-hole next.

  “I’ll make sure the rug lies flat,” Sophie said.

  “Ma, I think you oughta come down.” Beth looked at the front door, her face pale but determined.

  “I need to keep watch, Beth. You know how we do this.”

  Beth hesitated again, and Sophie didn’t hurry her. Sophie respected all her girls’ instincts.

  “I don’t know why, Ma, but I’ve got a feeling you need to clear out of the house. If you come with us, we can work our way out to the cave and scout the men who are supposed to be standing watch. We’ll know if there’s any real trouble.”

  Sophie was torn.

  “We can leave Mandy, Sally, and Laura here underground,” Beth added. “They can run the porch traps. If one of our men comes, they can let ’im know where we are.”

  Sophie and her girls had faced a lot of danger in the years they lived alone in this house. And they’d always handled it with Sophie remaining above, guarding the house. She hesitated. It set wrong with her to leave her home undefended, but the look on Beth’s face held her fast.

  “Something inside me tells me that this is a good time to be afraid, Ma. Something is telling you that, too. We all need to go, Ma. Now!”

  Sophie went. She left the lanterns burning to provide a little light for the underground room and to make the house looked lived-in. She grabbed the rifle and shotgun hanging on nails above the front door then followed Beth into the hole. She closed the trap door over her head. As the door swung shut, closing the five of them into the cramped darkness, she prayed, “Lord, help me, help me, help me.”

  Luther was beside Clay and Adam, and all at once he froze in his tracks. Adam stopped so suddenly he almost fell over.

  Clay looked at both of them. “I heard her.”

  Luther was running. Adam sprinted ahead of him. Clay, adrenaline coursing through his very bones, tore the reins loose from the branch.

  “Where are you going in such an all-fired hurry?” Sheriff Everett hollered. “We don’t even know what direction they headed.”

  “They’re at McClellen’s,” Luther shouted as he spurred his horse. “How do you know?” Everett said.

  The rangers were already swinging up on their horses, responding to the urgent riding of the three men.

  “We heard Sophie call for help,” Adam shouted over his shoulder as he kicked his horse into a canter.

  Clay’s only thought was to get to Sophie and the girls before it was too late. He was a mile down the trail at a full gallop before he looked back. The whole posse, regardless of the nonsense of Adam’s words, had fallen in line behind him, all bent on one thing: Get to the ranch. Save Clay’s family.

  Sophie couldn’t help being a little disgruntled. It looked like she was going to have to save her girls herself.

  As usual.

  What was the point of men anyway? She looked at her four precious daughters and thought of the child growing inside her. She loved her children fiercely and was glad she had them, so she begrudgingly decided men had their purpose.

  “I’m going out the tunnel to the cave entrance,” Beth said. “It’s ri
ght above one of the best lookouts on the ranch. If they’ve got someone watching us, he’ll be there.”

  “I’m going with you.” Sophie started crawling toward the tunnel. It was low and dark. They would be on their hands and knees the whole way. “If we find trouble, the both of us will need to get in position to spring the traps.”

  Sophie left the shotgun leaning against the dirt wall of the cramped little crawl space. The only thing that kept the little cellar from being pitch-black was light coming through tiny slits between the floorboards overhead. The musty dirt smelled like safety. “Mandy, take the braces out of the porch. Sally, keep Laura asleep if you possibly can. Her crying could alert someone that you’re down here. If she wakes up and starts crying, get down the tunnel about halfway. No one can hear her there.”

  Mandy was already working on the front porch. Sally sat back and cradled Laura in her arms.

  The ranch house was built just a few dozen feet in front of the first rocky crags that grew into bluffs to the west of the McClellen ranch. Sophie had dug a tunnel in the years after Cliff had gone to war, well braced with timbers she’d cut herself, burrowing herself a little escape route. Those hadn’t been particularly dangerous years, although there had been a few incidences of Indian trouble and the inevitable smalltime rustling.

  Sophie hadn’t felt safe, and she wasn’t a woman to sit by and hope for the best when there was something she could do. She’d dug her way to the cave, which had a series of caverns she could follow all the way to the top of the bluffs.

  Sophie and Beth crawled through the tunnel. Sophie felt the weight of the mountain crushing down on her in the stygian darkness. They emerged in the cave and could see again, even with dusk darkening into night.

  They stuck together until they reached the highest point in the underground cave system. Beth looked at Sophie, and Sophie gestured for her to go check for a lookout.

  Elizabeth, at eight years, had a gift for the woods that she had honed in the thicket, sneaking up on deer because she loved to study animals. Sophie didn’t like sending her daughter into danger, but Sophie knew her children’s strengths. She knew Beth could do this better than she could.

  Beth slipped away silently, and Sophie didn’t have long to wait for her return. Beth held a finger up to her lips and led Sophie back down into the tunnel out of earshot.

  “I found him right outside the cave entrance,” she whispered. “He’s not one of our men. He’s got Rio hog-tied, lying on the ground unconscious.”

  Sophie’s stomach did a sickening twist. Up until now she’d just been following a small voice in her head that said there was danger, but she’d had no solid proof.

  Now she had it. That man could be no one but a member of Mason’s gang. Adam had said there were twenty of them. They’d caught four. Clay had mentioned that several of the gang had run off. The sheriff had seen eight men go into Sawyer Canyon. Eight men.

  “If Rio’s tied, he’s alive.” Sophie made sure Beth didn’t hear one ounce of fear. “If we can get him loose and he’s not hurt too bad, he’ll be a help.”

  “I wish Pa were here.” Beth looked toward the cave entrance.

  How had these men gotten out of that box canyon? And what had happened to the posse who had them cornered? Sophie thought, Just once, I wish he were here, too. Then she stiffened her backbone. “If you want to help, you’d best do some praying, Beth.”

  “What should I pray, Ma?”

  “I haven’t prayed much of anything for years,” Sophie said grimly, “except, ‘Help me.’ ”

  There it was again—Sophie’s sweet voice. The first time it had been laced with desperation. This time she sounded resigned and very tired. A thrill of fear cut straight to Clay’s heart. He looked behind him. Luther and Adam had gotten the message, too.

  In an odd way, hearing her prayer made Clay feel better. He hadn’t given it much thought, but it had occurred to him that Luther and Adam had been hearing her prayers when he should have been the one God was calling to go help Sophie. Of course, up till now, he’d been on the spot, not in need of being called by a miracle since he was within shouting distance.

  They had five miles to go, but it was five rugged miles, some of it up and down instead of across. They’d be an hour or more getting home. If he pushed his horse to the limit and the horse fell and broke a leg, he might not get there at all. He pushed his horse to the limit anyway. The Appaloosa was so game, Clay wondered if he hadn’t heard Sophie calling, too.

  T W E N T Y - T W O

  I reckon asking God for help is about all most of it boils down to anyway.” Beth squared her shoulders and started for the opening.

  Sophie nodded and patted Beth on the arm.

  “Then why does the parson have to go on so long on Sunday morning with his praying?” Beth asked.

  “Well, we need to say thank You, too.” Sophie pulled her riding skirt close against her legs to keep the fabric from rustling. “And usually when you get to counting up, we’ve got way more to thank God for than to ask Him for, so it can take awhile.”

  Beth seemed skeptical. “It’s not that I mind saying, ‘Help me’ and ‘Thank You’; it’s that I mind the parson saying it so slow for so long.”

  Sophie didn’t have anything much to say to that, so she changed the subject. “Let’s get down to saving this ranch.”

  Beth got in position just outside the cave entrance behind the lookout.

  Sophie moved through the tunnel to a lower level and slipped out to hide behind some rocks. The rocks were in a tall, jumbled pile. When she was setting her traps, Sophie had moved the pile around a bit so there was a small opening she could see through without being seen. Carefully surveying the area for others in the gang before each movement, Sophie crept up behind the rocks. She watched the man, who was only about twenty feet away from her, most of it straight up. Sophie lifted a small rock and pulled a folded oilskin paper out from under it. She unfolded the paper and took out the prettiest hanky she’d ever owned. She touched the delicate thing, all white linen and tatted lace, then she picked up a few tiny rocks and a little damp earth and slapped it into the middle of the handkerchief to weigh it down. Then she waited for Elizabeth.

  Sophie couldn’t hear what Beth did, but Sophie knew her little girl. She wouldn’t make too much noise, nor too little. The man turned away from watching.

  Sophie deftly rose from her hiding place and tossed the weighted handkerchief onto a spot about a dozen feet off the trail, in plain sight of the outlaw. She ducked back out of sight.

  When the man turned around from studying the land behind him, he went back to his careful watch. It took him ten minutes to spot the hankie, and Sophie was about to explode from frustration by the time he saw it.

  The man straightened. Sophie was close enough to see his eyes sharpen. Sophie had to give him credit. He was a good lookout. He didn’t go down to look at the handkerchief right away. He waited, made sure there was no one around, and then started sidling down the steep trail.

  He walked over to the handkerchief, and as he bent to pick it up, Sophie heard him mumble, “Was this lying here before?”

  Sophie yanked the rope that released the net the man was standing on. With a startled yell, the man was jerked thirty feet in the air as the sapling sprung up straight. Just as Sophie had planned, the man ended up dangling very close to the steepest drop-off. Before he could make a second sound, Sophie stepped out from the clearing and brandished her hunting knife near the hemp rope that stretched from the ground to the tree. “If you yell again, I’ll cut the rope and you won’t quit falling until you’ve rolled all the way to the ranch house.

  The man looked frantically at the knife, then he looked at the jagged rocks that covered the hillside for half a mile, mostly straight down, and didn’t make a peep.

  Sophie ducked back behind the rock and called out softly, “I’m waiting for your friends back here. Don’t make me regret letting you live.”

  Sophie sat quiet
ly behind the rock for a few minutes until she started to believe the man was actually going to remain silent. Then she soundlessly slipped back into the cave and ran up to meet Beth. Beth had Rio untied, but although breathing steadily, he was out cold. He had a good-sized welt on his forehead.

  Sophie said, “We’re not going to get much help from him.”

  Beth shook her head. “Let’s drag him into the cave so no one bothers him.”

  It took a lot of tugging to move the burly Mexican. Sophie paused to rest several times, mindful of the unborn baby she was supposed to be coddling. They got him hidden, then they headed through the honeycomb of caves for the next most likely lookout.

  “I hear someone coming in the back,” Mandy hissed at Sally.

  Sally lay Laura down. “The braces?”

  “All out,” Mandy answered. Both girls fell silent. Mandy gripped on the pigging string in her hand and two more in her mouth and waited. She’d played this game so many times with her ma that she knew exactly what to do. The only thing was, she’d never actually had to do it before. This time, it looked like it was really going to happen.

  She moved to the back of the house and peeked through a hidden slit. It definitely wasn’t one of the McClellen men. It was a dirty-looking man with no good on his mind, judging from the rifle in his hands. The man stepped up onto the back porch, and it collapsed under him. His head cracked with a solid thud on the crossbar Ma had rigged for just this reason. It left the man stunned as it was meant to.

  Mandy dove at the man. She whipped the leather around his hands behind his back, then took another pigging string out of her teeth and whipped his feet together. She’d hog-tied a two-year-old steer many times, and this man didn’t wiggle a bit more than that. She had him tied up tight and gagged before the dust had settled from the fall. She tossed his rifle to Sally, who caught it deftly and set it aside. Mandy dragged the man away from the hole in the porch floor with quick, practiced moves, while Sally reset the porch boards. The trap was ready again.